• Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Apapa: NPA awaits modalities on presidential order as gridlock shifts to neighbourhoods

Apapa

Following President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive for the immediate clearing of the Apapa gridlock and the restoration of sanity in the port city and environs, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the implementing agency, said on Thursday it is awaiting the modalities for implementation of the new directive.

“The president’s directive is an order that was just issued on Wednesday, and the modalities are just being put in place; even the new taskforce is also being constituted,” said Adams Jatto, general manager, corporate and strategic communications of the NPA, in a telephone interview with BusinessDay.

According to Jatto, the modalities for the implementation would be released before the end of this week.

“The Apapa problem is now a national issue and the taskforce is being constituted by the Office of the Vice President because this has gone beyond an issue for the NPA. It now involves all the agencies that operate in the port,” he said.

Jatto, who disclosed that the directive was issued from the Presidency, said the new taskforce being constituted would be in line with the idea which the NPA had before the opening of Lilyond Truck Terminal.

“If you remember, we earlier proposed to disband the military and other uniformed personnel from mounting checkpoints on the roads while a new taskforce, which will comprise LASTMA, police, FRSC and the NPA security officials was to be set up by the NPA to enforce the new measures,” he said.

Jatto said the inability of the Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing to complete and hand over to the NPA the trailer park being built at the Second Gate of the Tin-Can Island Port would not hinder the implementation.

He confirmed that the second trailer park would be ready in the next two weeks but in the interim, the NPA would use the Lilypond Truck Transit Park to manage trucks going to both Apapa and Tin-Can Island, especially for export cargoes.

Jatto hoped that the new directive would enable NPA to consolidate on what it was already doing in managing Apapa traffic in the last two weeks. He recalled that the NPA at the opening of the Lilypond Terminal promised to deploy its towing vans, with the assistance of LASTMA officials, to tow any defaulting truck found parking on the roads and bridges leading to the ports in Lagos.

He assured that the authority would not look back in the implementation of the N20,000 fine proposed to impose on any defaulting truck.

Meanwhile, a day after the announcement of the 72-hour presidential order, the Apapa congestion and gridlock are shifting to its neighbourhoods.

Surulere, Festac Town via Mile 2, Ijora, Costain, and so on were almost impassable on Thursday as the trucks fleeing Apapa have made every available space in these areas, including the narrow dilapidated roads, their parking bays, denying other road users access to the roads.

The Lagos-Badagry Expressway, which has become a nightmare since the Lagos State government abandoned its reconstruction mid-way, was totally shut down such that even commercial motorcycles (Okada) were stuck in-between interminable stretch of trailers and tankers.

“The government ought to have perfected its acts before making this announcement. They should have waited for the trailer park which was factored into this presidential order to be completed before giving the ultimatum,” said Innocent Osigwe, who lives in the Badagry axis and works in Surulere.

Accessing Eko Bridge en route Lagos Island through Masha Road and Animasaun Street, both in Surulere, was so difficult on Thursday morning that motorists spent hours on those routes, leading to huge economic losses.

The story was not different for motorists and commuters in the Festac Town, Mile 2 and Yaba axis.

“It has always been tough for us coming out of Festac Town through Mile 2, but today’s [Thursday] experience was something else; it took me almost two hours to come out of the gridlock on Mile 2 Bridge,” Sesan Oluloyo, a staff of a real estate firm in Ikoyi, told BusinessDay.

He said that it took him almost four hours to get to his office, which would usually not take him up to two hours at normal driving speed. He hoped that the experienced would not be repeated.

“If that is going to be the case going forward, then the presidential order needs to be reconsidered,” he said.

CHUKA UROKO & AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE