• Thursday, March 28, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

How Lagos power tussle cost Nigeria ABAT truck terminal at Orile-Iganmu, others

trailers

It was projected to be completed in seven months, but six months after its construction was flagged off in August 2018, nothing serious has been started. Even the contractor is nowhere near the site, dashing every possible hope of delivering the Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu (ABAT) Truck Terminal at Orile-Iganm in Lagos any time soon.

The truck terminal had been proposed to accommodate over 1,000 petroleum tankers (wet cargoes). Beyond the wet cargoes, the state government had also hinted at further expansion to accommodate containerised trucks.

All this was intended to bring the much-desired relief to millions of road users who are suffering directly and indirectly from the harmful impact of the continued occupation of major roads and bridges in Nigeria’s commercial nerve-centre by petroleum tankers and containerised trucks.
But with less than four months to the end of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration in the state, it’s obvious that the ABAT truck terminal, like many other projects started by the administration, would not be delivered.

The implication is that the relief that the truck terminal would have brought to millions of Nigerians and Lagosians in particular remains a mirage as several hundreds of trucks still lie on major roads in the state, including Funsho Williams Avenue (former Western Avenue), Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Eric Moore, Eko and Ijora-Apapa Bridges.

It was reliably learnt that the contract for the project was not formally sealed between the state government and Planet Projects Limited. Governor Ambode, in a quest to find an enduring solution to the grinding gridlock around Apapa in the heat of the public outcry that trailed the damage being caused to the economy by the activities of the trucks, had directed the contractor to start work, with the plan to formally seal the contract in later days.

Planet Projects is a major contractor to the Lagos State government under Governor Ambode. The company is involved in a number of government’s projects, including the multi-billion naira Oshodi Transport Interchange, the ultra-modern Ikeja Bus Terminal, among others.
A source told BusinessDay that unfolding political events in the state soon after the construction of the truck terminal was flagged off on August 5, 2018 put strain on the execution of the project, leading to the contractor pulling its personnel and machinery from the site in less than two months.

“The contract papers were not formalised and there’s no way the contractor could have continued work under the uncertain political atmosphere that enveloped the state at that time without a sealed contract papers. Who would pay for the job? It was only expected that the contractor would pull out,” said the source.

The source added that the contractor and the state government are currently in discussions for a formal award of the contract and this might take the next three weeks to finalise. What this means is that the governorship/state Houses of Assembly elections slated for March 9 would have been held and winners emerge. The outcome of the election, therefore, would decide the fate of the all-important truck terminal project.

When contacted, Taiwo Olufemi Salaam, permanent secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Transportation, linked the delay in the take-off of the project to the political situation in the country.

Salaam, however, also partly blamed it on the delayed 2019 budget of the state, saying “the 2019 budget has been presented”.

Like many other projects initiated by the current administration, the ABAT truck terminal has suffered from what many believe to be power tussles among political gladiators in the state.
Recall that between September and October 2018, an uncertain tension engulfed Lagos ahead of the ruling All Progressives Congress primaries which had to be shifted thrice, as political actors in the APC became divided over Governor Ambode’s second-term bid.

While top leaders of the party wanted Ambode to withdraw from the primary contest and queue behind Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the anointed candidate, a few others stood by Ambode and urged him to run. Ambode eventually lost in the primaries which held on October 2, 2018 and Sanwo-Olu emerged the APC governorship candidate in the state. Since the party’s primaries, governance in the state has nosedived, along with the pace of infrastructure development.
The truck terminal was first built in 2007 through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) involving the state government and stakeholders in the downstream petroleum sector with the capacity for about 800 trucks. It eventually went out of use around 2010 in the aftermath of the expansion of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway which took a chunk of the site.

Remi Ogungbemi, president, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), told BusinessDay there was the need to fast-track the reconstruction of the terminal to allow several trucks still lying on the roads and bridges around Apapa to move in.

Ogungbemi, who also recently visited the project site, expressed disappointment that six months after it was started, nothing was going on.

 

JOSHUA BASSEY