The Presidential Task Team on Restoration of Law and Order in Apapa area (PTT-RLO) has given reasons gridlock returned to Apapa, citing five major incidents that caused the congestion in the port city in the last two weeks.
Unexpectedly, traffic build-up returned to Apapa after some six months of respite from what had become a nightmarish experience driving or commuting to the port city where marine and other business activities draw people from all over Nigeria to.
Until now, motorists and even Apapa residents had been confused as to the cause of the sudden and uncontrollable return of gridlock which had become a major feature of Apapa until the task team came.
Prominent among the incidents that led to the return of the congestion, according to the task team, was the November 24, 2019 attack by hoodlums on the Lilypond Transit Truck Park, describing it as a major setback in government efforts.
“Since that incident, Lilypond is yet to recover fully. It was expected that the facility needed a minimum of two weeks to recover from the attack,” Kayode Opeifa, Executive Vice Chairman of PTT-RLO, said.
The invasion of Apapa by tankers from Ijegun and Abule Ado areas was another major cause of the congestion that was seen in Apapa recently. This, the task team explained, was as a result of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Lagos State government’s action to resolve some issues in the Ijegun area.
“We met severally with NUPENG/PTD to arrange the coming of the tankers between 10am and 5pm. The matter was eventually resolved, resulting in the meeting between officials of Lagos State government, Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, and the NUPENG and petroleum tanker drivers (PTD) national leadership,” Opeifa said.
Continuing, he said, “prior to the resolution, we had series of meetings with the South West and national leadership of NUPENG and PTD on trucks, delaying their approach to Tank-farm from 10.30am to 5pm daily with assurance to them of accessing their loading point within two hours of arrival.”
Other factors that contributed to the return of the gridlock were linked to issues of “corruption-fighting-back as reflected in the propagation of negative news to embarrass the government.
The on-going reconstruction work leading to shut-down of Point Road and outbound Creek Road at several entry points due to concrete laying and recent closure of outbound lane of Liverpool Bridge were also pointed out.
In spite all these, the task team has assured that, by Monday, November 11, the situation would normalize. It should be noted that motorists experienced free and smooth drive to Apapa on Friday.
Those who had any kind of delay were motorists that came to the port city through Eko Bridge where there was slow movement as a result of rehabilitation work going on at the time at Akpongbon Bridge.
CHUKA UROKO
