Following the failure of past Apapa traffic control taskforces to resolve the lingering gridlock in the port area, truckers have rejected the introduction of Police or any new taskforce to be on the road for manual control of truck movement into the ports.
Remi Ogungbemi, chairman, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), who raised the question, said that setting up of taskforce as solution to Apapa and Tin-Can gridlock, is not only a complete misconception of the problem, but also a 100 degree policy somersault.
He described the move as conducting hernia surgery with cutlass, which results to the revival of old order of unlawful extortion of truckers under the guise of taskforce.
“We have had more than enough of various taskforces and they have failed to be the solution rather they inflicted various degrees of injuries on truckers. The world is moving away from analogue way to digital method of doing things. We call on Federal Government to jettison the analogue method and embrace digital method of passing trucks into the ports. Human interference forms part of the root cause of gridlock in Apapa and Tin-Can roads,” he said.
Continuing, he said: “Why does government always see the deployment of security operatives as the best solution to Apapa and Tin-Can gridlock, even when the same strategy has failed to resolve the problem in the past? When the Presidential Task Team (PTT) was inaugurated to resolve gridlock in Apapa, it eventually led to the institutionalisation of bribery and extortion of truckers by different road cabals in collaboration with the security operatives who became a problem instead of providing solution to the problem of traffic they were sent to resolve.”
This, according to him, was reason behind disbandment of PTT by government including the avalanche of complaints of gross abuse of its mandate for selfish ends.
“It is unfortunate that authority does not know how to holistically resolve problem the way it should. The fact that government has hammer does not mean every problem is a nail. There are problems whose solutions do not require the deployment of police and military riffles but a simple technological approach,” he pointed out.
Ogungbemi, however disclosed that the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has appointed a company called Truck Transit Park Limited (TTP) to manage Lilypond Transit Park and to introduce an automated system of admitting trucks seamlessly into the ports.
The new system, which is scheduled to take off on 27th of February 2021, will help to eliminate and find a lasting solution to traffic congestion in port access roads. This system can seamlessly admit trucks into ports, petroleum tank farms and factories without trucks clogging the roads and bridges.
He said that AMATO as association also came up with a Truck Scheduler System (TSS) for seamless admission of trucks into the ports but unfortunately, the Federal Government is planning the formation of another task team to control traffic in Apapa and Tin-Can axis.
Under this arrangement, all trucks would be made to leave the roads and bridges and go back to their private garages while the terminal operators as well as NPA decides and approves which container or cargo is ready for loading, including the truck that is in turn to leave its park in order to go and load at ports, factories and depots through the automation system.
Tags would also be allocated to trucks that are approved by the automated system to make sure that only trucks with approved tags are allowed to move to the port access roads without clogging the bridges and port access roads. This is contrast to the manual system of passing trucks where road sides are converted to truck parks for hundreds of trucks to clog the bridges and port access roads in the struggle to enter ports, factories and tank farms.
Research has proved that the major causes of gridlock around Apapa and Tin-Can include consistent rise in human population, importation, exportation, increase in vehicular movements, business activities, without corresponding increase and expansion of road networks infrastructures.
“Though, expansion can’t come overnight, but in this computer age, we need to embrace technology in form of automation with a view to removing human interference in admitting of trucks into the Apapa and Tin-Can Ports including all the factories and petroleum tank farms,” he added.
