The success story of the Presidential Task Team set up by President Muhammadu Buhari with the mandate to clear the Apapa gridlock is telling itself as Apapa, once a loathsome destination, is now largely free of congestion and gridlock. It sounds like fairytale, but a visit or drive through Apapa roads and bridges says it all – it can be done if the will to work and the right person is there.
And that is what the Kayode Opeifa-led task team has demonstrated in Nigeria’s premier port city that was already degenerating into a wasteland.
Once again, Apapa is breathing and residents, business owners and motorists are heaving sighs of relief, simply because the present task team, unlike many others before it, has chosen to think and work differently.
Members of the team are drawn from the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Nigerian Ports Authority and the Nigerian Shippers Council.
Other members include a special unit of the Nigeria Police Force led by a Commissioner of Police, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), representatives of the Truck Transport Union, the Lagos State Government through the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), etc.
Travel time into Apapa through the Costain and Lagos Island routes inward Ijora has reduced substantially following the clearing of the roads and bridges by the presidential task team. BusinessDay reporter who plies those routes to Apapa every day can authoritatively report that travel time through the Eko Bridge and Lagos Island axes has dropped significantly such that journey time from Ikoyi to Apapa, for instance, which used to take many hours before now, takes at most 30 minutes.
Commuters who spoke to BusinessDay on Monday said they were optimistic that the prevailing ease in traffic being experienced along the corridor would be sustained despite all challenges.
“When the military was brought to control Apapa traffic, I warned them against that. I told them that what was needed was a traffic management to complement what was being done on port reforms,” Opeifa, who is the executive vice chairman of the task team, told BusinessDay. “But they went ahead and brought the military and when they came, they shut down everything rather than use a traffic management plan.
They were just enforcing and controlling misbehaviour while traffic situation was getting worse,” he said. Opeifa disclosed that the team has been able to achieve what everybody can testify to because it has a clear traffic management direction which it followed and is still following, saying there is a manual call-up system which is transparent to the stakeholders, so they believe in it.
“We use the trade unions which we interface with and they usually take us to the shipping companies for discussions. We have incorporated more people into the task team and that has helped us a great deal. We have support from the Lagos State government. The NPA has also been of much help,” Opeifa said.
The journey, though, has not been easy in a highly militarised environment where, according to the task team vice chairman, a lot of people come from different military formations to make fast money “There had been too many taskforces and they are yet to leave the scene. When they come, they come with aggression and are very vicious,” he said.
Another major challenge, he pointed out, is that the team sees corruption fighting back, because the people the task team has prevented from the regular ‘chop-chop’ are busy spreading wrong information about the team and trying to frustrate its efforts. But many people, especially Apapa residents, business owners and some transport unions are commending the great work the team has done and continues to do.
Container owners, under the aegis Amalgamated Container Trucks Owners, have commended the team and also faulted allegations of sharp practices levelled against the team in some quarters, saying that the team should be commended for work well done, restoring sanity and orderliness in Apapa.
Olalaye Thompson, chairman of the association, who stated this while talking to newsmen, recalled that prior to the intervention of the presidential task team, they were paying as much as N150,000 or more to access the port, adding that corrupt practices under the previous joint taskforce led by the Nigerian Navy were responsible for the persistent gridlock in the axis.
CHUKA UROKO, MIKE OCHONMA & JOSHUA BASSEY
