What readily comes to mind whenever and wherever Apapa is mentioned in Nigeria is the snarling traffic gridlock that has transformed the premier port city into a suffocating crucible. But there are a lot more to the port city than gridlock.
To residents, business owners and sundry workers, gridlock is just an aspect of their woes, though it is the grandmother of every other challenge they face. Many erstwhile thriving businesses have either died, dying or left Apapa for good. People’s investments are either decaying or collapsing like a pack of cards, just as jobs that depend on port and maritime activities are lost almost on daily basis.
What this means is that while casual visitors worry about the interminable fleet of trailers and tankers that snake their way into the port city, causing the gridlock that keeps motorists on the road for hours, little do they know that residents and businesses are bleeding.
In the last five to six years, Apapa has and continues to redefine and redirect people’s lives in a manner that compels them to ask endless questions about existence and the real essence of living.
As Nigeria’s premier port city, Apapa harbours the two busiest seaports in the country, accounting for over 70 percent of the nation’s export and import activities. The economy of this port city is estimated at N20 billion a day and could have been more if its environment had been enabling.
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The two seaports, Tin Can Island and Apapa, account for about 80 percent of non-oil revenues going into federal government’s coffers. Import duties and levies are collected by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS); royalties, rents and dues by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA); dues and levies by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), while certification levies are collected by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON).
In 2017, NPA declared its annual revenue estimated at N299.56 billion which exceeded the 2016 figure of N162.20, representing over 80 percent increase. In the last five years, the authority’s revenue profile has been on the increase and, according to a source close to the ports authority, in 2013 it generated N154.50 billion while the revenue increased to N159.30 billion andN180.50 billion in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
What this means is that in the last five years, NPA alone generated about N956.06 billion for the government. Unconfirmed report has it that the Customs Service (NCS) surpassed its revenue target of N1.2 trillion in 2017, while NIMASA and SON also declared revenues that ran into billions of naira.
Yet, in the midst of all these, Apapa is in a mess, gradually degenerating into a wasteland where infrastructure has collapsed and the entire environment is degraded. As a port city, Apapa has a near-perfect masterplan which, if implemented, will make it rank among the best port cities in the world.
The masterplan remains a mere draft because both the Lagos State and the Federal Government lack the political will to deploy part of the huge revenue they rake in from Apapa to address the many challenges of the city including roads infrastructure, a standard rail track, a functional loading bay for trailers and tankers, motorable and well maintained bridges, etc.
For these actions or inactions of government, many landlords, especially retirees who invested in property, hoping to live on rents from the houses for the rest of their lives are today biting their fingers as over 50 percent of houses, residential and commercial, in Apapa are empty, depreciating in value.
“You can’t compare the situation now to how it was before. No one has been to hell or heaven but from our experience, we can liken the situation in Apapa to hell. Apapa used to be a place for good businesses and, in those days, both residential and commercial property were in high demand”, a landlord who did not want to be named told BusinessDay.
“I built houses here and gave them out to tenants. I used the rents I collected from those houses to train my children in school, but today virtually all the apartments are empty and nobody is showing interest”, the landlord lamented.
Joe Akhigbe, an estate surveyor and value, confirmed the sorry situation of the Apapa property market to BusinessDay, saying that property value there has come down by over 40 percent in the last five years. “I have a block of nine flats in Apapa; it has been in the market for more than two years; we have reviewed the rent downwards twice to attract tenants, but nobody is showing interest. It is as bad as that”, he said.
The high volume of maritime and other business activities used to create jobs for both skilled and menial workers who were either residents and people from the surrounding areas like Ajegunle, Ijora, Yaba, Oyingbo, etc. Not anymore. Many of them that had one form of job or another there have lost same, meaning that household income is crimped, and children’s school fees and house rent payment has become a huge challenge.
Nebolisa Okon is a middle-aged man living in Ajegunle with a wife and six children. Okon was first a port worker from where he graduated and became a clearing and forwarding agent. As an agent, Okon saw money, but today, “there is no more business at the ports; even to get to Apapa and come back takes a whole day; it doesn’t make sense to go out any longer”, he told BusinessDay out of frustration.
Because of his present situation, he revealed, his first daughter in the university is in and out of school; the second one finished secondary school two years ago, but cannot proceed because the younger ones’ school fees payment is often negotiated with school authorities, while their landlord is unrelenting in his demand for his house rent.
Similarly, most businesses in the port city are struggling. Wharf Road and Commercial Road used to be Apapa’s ‘Central Business Districts’ where high net worth firms and banks had their offices and branches respectively. A walk through these ‘districts’ shows that most of the banks have either relocated or have the number of their branches reduced.
On Wharf Road alone, more than 10 banks and two eateries have shut down their branches due to the pain and difficulty in accessing these branches, leading to loss of substantial customers in the area. Eateries like Tetrazini has shut down, Tantalizer with three outlets has reduced to one and the only Mr Biggs eatery in Apapa on Creek Road is now out of the market. Film House Cinema inside Apapa Mall has also shut down.
Even the famous Apapa Amusement Park which used to be a source of joy for the kids has shut down due to low patronage. Major hotels like Rockview, Excelsior and many others are groaning for lack of patronage as most of their rooms are empty. Chains of events that require renting their halls are no longer frequent.
The popular Eleganza complex that used to house over 1000 offices is virtually empty because the tenants have relocated or are out of business. The few tenants, who are still hanging on, owe several months of rent. The complex which used to be the centre of activities is now a ghost of itself, empty, deserted and dilapidated.
