In Nigeria, when political leaders and government functionaries are not exhibiting tribal sentiments, they must be busy lying or being hypocritical, giving the impression that all is well even in a messy situation.
Nowhere and at no time had this been better demonstrated than in Apapa, Lagos as the nation’s commercial capital prepared for the visit of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president and the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who came to the state to canvass for votes.
All the trailers and tankers which have taken over every route to Apapa were made to vacate those routes. The enforcement was comprehensive and the compliance was total, raising questions as to where the trucks ‘disappeared’ into and who or what made the disappearance happen.
What the government and its security agencies did that day simply showed that they had been deceiving and punishing not just the residents and business owners in Apapa, but also anybody who has anything to do with Apapa as motorist, port worker, clearing agent, or even factory worker.
To have freed all roads and bridges in Apapa of the rampaging trucks underscored government’s wickedness. What that demonstrated too was that the life and comfort of one Nigerian citizen, that is, the president, is more important than the lives of millions of Nigerians who are suffering on daily basis because of the unwholesome activities of these trucks which seemed to have defied solution.
“What happened at the weekend simply shows that, all these years, we have been suffering from government’s wickedness and apathy. This shows you that the solution to the Apapa problem is possible and it is in the hands of the government and its agencies”, said Uche Chiejina, an estate manager who has been in property business in Apapa in the past 20 years.
Chiejina is of the view that there are packing bays for those trucks which have chosen to park on roads and bridges because there is no planning such as a functional call up system that will determine the time for any truck to leave its parking bay for the ports.
Apapa today represents a dead or dysfunctional system where people’s investment in property and other assets are in ruins, yet government is not unconcerned. Businesses are dying or relocating; residents who invested these assets are living in poverty because rental income on their property have stopped. They cannot even go out of their residences because they may not be able to come back.
The Vice President must have been bewildered how the long stretch of Ikorodu road, Western Avenue, linking up Constain Roundabout inward Eko Bridge, and indeed Apapa, was completely free on Saturday, February 9, when he arrived Teslim Balogun Stadium; venue of the APC presidential rally that brought Buhari to Lagos.
Twice Osinbajo had visited Apapa and even held meetings with “stakeholders” at the Naval Dockyard. Twice he issued what could be termed ‘lame-duck directives’ to the petroleum tankers, container-laden trucks to vacate the roads leading in and out of Apapa. And, in perpetuity, those directives have been ignored and treated with utmost disdain, as the tankers and trailers had maintained their stronghold on the roads in Lagos.
It must have shocked the vice president that the roads into Apapa and around Surulere, Lagos, were free on Saturday. Osinbajo must have been wondering how it happened. But it was the same people that Osinbajo met again and again and directed to clear the roads but ignored him that got to work on Friday and Saturday, meaning that the Apapa suffering is deliberately inflicted on people and their businesses.
