Tank Farms: The missing link in the search for solution to Apapa mess

For the wrong reason Apapa, Nigeria’s premier port city, has been making headlines in the media in the past five years or more. The port city has, unfortunately, become a metaphor for stress and suffering arising from a daily, endless and tortuous traffic gridlock.
Frequently, whenever this problem is tabled for ordinary conversation or serious discussion, fingers are pointed at the many bad roads in and around Apapa which are, truly, critical. Apapa roads whether, one is talking about the inner roads or the two major routes that lead to the city, are extremely bad.
But, the problem goes beyond bad roads. Each time stakeholders gather to chart ways forward and end the daily nightmare in Apapa, every attention is focused on the roads. Never has there been a day the many tank farms in this city have been pointed at as a major contributor to the intractable problem.
In many locations, tank farms have been built for the storage of imported fuel into the country. Like the nectar in flowers which attract butterflies from every corner, tank farms are also attracting petroleum tankers from almost every part of the country to this tiny island city that has virtually lost its charm to the unwholesome activities of the invading tankers and trailers.
Recently, the reconstruction of the Apapa Wharf Road was undertaken by a consortium comprising the Dangote Group, Nigeria Flour Mill and the Nigerian Ports Authority. Businesses, residents and port users are hoping for some relief one year from now when the N4.34 billion reconstruction work is projected to be completed.
The reconstruction work to be handled by AG Dangote, a civil construction company, and joint venture between Dangote Group and AG of Brazil, would utilise concrete slabs as against asphalt, common with road construction in this part of the world.
Babatunde Fashola, the minister of power, works and housing, is optimistic that the project, when delivered would bring the much expected relief to the port community. He added that the government would equally intervene in other roads within Apapa, including the Mile 2-Tincan axis, Liverpool and Creeks Road, where Julius Berger Plc, had been directed to commence some palliative work, this week, to allow free access to the ports.
Emmanuel Ameke, a port worker, thinks differently. Though he commends Dangote and his team for offering to do what is ordinarily government duty, he says that “until something fundamental is done about the many tank farms scattered all over Apapa and environs, even if the government likes repairs the roads many times over, it will not change the situation in that area”.
Ameke notes that repairing the roads is quite necessary, but it will not bring noticeable change in the mess that Apapa has become. “The number of trucks coming into this place is not going to reduce because the roads are better; the only thing that will reduce the number of trucks coming into Apapa is the relocation of the tank farms. Once the trucks can no longer find what brings them to Apapa, they will stop coming”, he reasoned in an interview.
James Aggrey, a Ghanaian working with a marine services company, affirms adding that something also needs to be done about holding bays for the trailers that come for consignments in the ports. He wonders what could be holding the trailer park being built along the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
“The non-completion of that Trailer Park on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, the construction of which was aimed to take the trucks off the expressway is one of the failings of the federal government in its duty to the citizens”, Aggrey emphasised.
Contract for the construction of the park, which is expected to bring respite to motorists and other road-users by providing parking space for about 500 trailers, was awarded in 2010 and work has been at snail pace on the site. Presently, nothing is happening at the site. The whole place is sleeping, though the contractor maintains ‘presence’ on site by leaving behind a few equipment and a couple of workers who, like the equipment and the entire site always ‘sleeping on duty’.
Worried by the unending traffic gridlock on the expressway that seems to have defied solutions, stakeholders say it is high time the presidency took decisive steps towards the completion and handing over of the park to the public.
A member of the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), who spoke with BDSUNDAY, said there was the need for the government to scrutinise the award of contract for the construction of the park and the extent of work done at the site with a view to finding out whether the right steps were taken in building the park.
“I guess that everybody is waiting for the new administration to scrutinise what has been done so far. In my view, the completion of the park is long overdue,” said the NARTO official who does not want his names in print.
An official of another transportation union also alleged that the contract for the park and the long delay in handing it over for public use has to do with what the official called ‘politics’ associated with the immediate past administration under President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to the official, the federal government under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), rather than open up the process that would lead to the management of the park to public to allow competent organisations to apply, the process was privately carried out with the presidency working to hand over the park to an alleged sponsors of the president’s re-election bid.
Whether this is true or not remains a matter of conjecture. What Apapa residents, businesses, port users, motorists, commuters, sundry workers among others are saying is that government should look beyond roads repair to bring respite and sanity back to this city that used to be a tourist destination.