Apapa residents, business community raise alarm over losses from gridlock

The Apapa GRA Residents Association has raised an alarm over the condition of the Ijora bridge which is endlessly everladen with heavy duty trucks, as the notorious traffick gridlock in the area persists, causing  countess losses in valuable manhours, as well as downtime to businesses across the country and hazard to lives and limbs.

The Apapa GRA Residents Association says the structural integrity of the Ijora bridge is now at great risk, as it has  become a permanent parking bay for very heavy duty trucks as well as for fuel tankers.

The residents at a meeting on Monday, called on the government to find lasting solution to the problem which has led to loss of business investments as investors are scared of the traffic situation which has become a permanent phenomenon.

They said properties worth billions of naira are without use and businesses are shutting down. On the other hand, residents are relocating out of Apapa en-mass, houses up for let abound in their hundreds, as nobody is renting, while the real estate business is dead in Apapa.

According a release by Sola Ayo-Vaughan, chairman, all these ills have bedeviled Apapa, simply because the fuel tankers and the container carrying trucks have blocked all the access roads that lead into the area.

Ayo-Vaughan further observed that the worse hit are the residents who live in Apapa, yet work outside the area, as they are constantly faced with an unimaginable dilemma.

In the case of fire emergencies in Apapa, he said the outcome has been pathetic as the access roads are blocked.

The association threatened to mobilise Apapa people in a tense protest if the trend continues. This entails shutting down all entry and exit points into Apapa until sanity is restored.

“We strongly condemn this dangerous trend which is now a norm. the Ijora bridge is physically caving due to the intense weight and constant pressure. The joints are literally packing. This is disaster in the waiting, this is an emergency situation and it is only a matter of time.

“The governments and their agencies continue to overlook this highly irresponsible and reprehensible behaviour that allows fuel tankers and container carrying trucks to turn a bridge into a park permanently”, he said.

“We are calling on the government to quickly come up with a plan that will urgently put a stop to the present traffic nightmare that we the residents and the business community of Apapa are currently subjected to daily. “We ask that the Federal Government should revisit the concessionaires and obtain their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) if this present traffic predicament was not envisaged in their report.”

Apapa is home to the nation’s two busiest sea ports, the  Apapa Port and Tin Can port and witnesses the movement of hundreds of heavy duty trucks conveying goods to and from these points.

Industry watchers say part of the problem is that the rial system which should be conveying goods to and from the ports has collapsed and been replaced by obtrusive motorised trucks. 

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE