Though the task is daunting and the environment is unfriendly, the new Presidential Task Team on Apapa Gridlock says it is determined to make Apapa, Nigeria’s premier and busiest port city, work again. In this interview with CHUKA UROKO, Property Editor, the executive vice chairman of the Task Team, KAYODE OPEIFA, speaks on what they have done so far; how to sustain the success they have achieved, and their future plans to create a thriving port system where businesses flourish and residents are safe. Excerpts:
Apapa had seen one task force after another with little or no impact on the gridlock. What has your task team done differently that accounts for the relative improvement we have seen?
Let we say this first before I answer your question directly. The Apapa congestion or gridlock is not as complex as it is presented or portrayed. I was privileged to have been adviser and subsequently commissioner for transportation under Babatunde Fashola as governor of Lagos State. So I have been part of this problem for long.
In September 2011, I was the one who laid the declaration of state of emergency in Apapa. The state of emergency was declared not because of the trucks per se, but because of the environmental mess in which the port city was. The problem at that time was about tankers. Whenever there was fuel scarcity, we had a problem managing them.
We left government in May 2011 and by the time we came back in June of the same year, Apapa had become a big problem. A lot of things changed including the management of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA). The team that was sent to Apapa, especially around the Mile 2 axis, was weak and so they could not manage the crisis well. When we moved in by August of that same year, we found out that all the drainages had been silted with all sorts of rubbish.
Between 2011 and 2012, the situation became so bad that the federal government under President Goodluck Jonathan had to stop a federal executive council meeting to review the statement by the Lagos State government and directed five cabinet members to proceed to Lagos to meet with the Lagos State governor. This was because there was a realization that Apapa was a cash cow that was about to be destroyed.
What major action followed the meeting of the federal government cabinet members with the Lagos State government?
A committee was set up including the ministers for works, transport and finance; special adviser on economy, managing director of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA); director of operations at NPA; general manager of Western Port and federal controller of works. All these were from the federal government. Lagos State government came with the deputy governor, commissioners of transport and environment; managing director of LAWMA, among others. The committee met and went round. We had an understanding of everything and discovered that the port concessioning of 2006 was wrong coupled with bad roads, port operations, etc. These were identified as the main problems, not traffic situation.
That time, the traffic problem was not on Apapa-Ijora-Wharf Road, but the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway. We impounded 200 tankers and the federal government had to intervene. NUPENG went on national strike. The committee met again and an agreement was reached that no truck would be allowed to stay stationary on Lagos roads.
With benefit of hindsight, we can recall that these measures did not help the situation at all. Why?
Between 2007 and 2010, we did not have issues with trucks. It was in 2011 that we saw that the truck issue was becoming too much. The problem escalated following the killing of a LASTMA official, leading to the pulling out of the authority. When this happened, there was nobody in charge of traffic in Apapa and so the situation degenerated.
But, in 2017, I was back in Apapa to work with Area B police command for traffic control on the reconstruction of Wharf Road. It was after the reconstruction work that they brought in the military and I warned them against that. I told them that what was needed was a traffic management to complement what was being done on port reforms. But they went ahead and brought the military and when they came, they shut down everything rather than use a traffic management plan. They were just enforcing and controlling misbehavior while traffic situation was getting worse.
Back to my question; with the military out and your team in, what have you done differently?
Our coming into Apapa problem was not an accident or a coincidence. It was the product of a two-year meeting and planning at the presidency. There had been several meetings by the federal government with the ministry of works, Defence, Customs, NPA, Shippers Council, police, and the Presidential Economic and Business Enabling Environment Council (PEBEC). It was PEBEC that articulated all the ideas and came up with a holistic plan of what needed to be done. What we are doing therefore is just a part of that holistic plan. What people are seeing physically is just the transport management. There is an on-going ease of doing business reform inside the ports. The Shippers Council is also doing its own, dealing with the shipping companies, making sure that shipping business is not too expensive.
The Apapa-Oshodi Expressway remains largely congested and impassable. What is the task team doing or thinking about that major route to the ports?
We have done substantial work on that expressway. When we got there, the trucks were driving in every direction and the whole place was militarized. There were fake army, navy and even ordinary civilians all over the place, taking a lot of money from the truckers to pass them. Truckers were spending close to a month on a journey that should not be more than two hours. What we did was to dig trenches to prevent further indiscriminate movements by trucks. We cleared a 4-kilomentre stretch of the expressway from Tin Can end towards Mile 2 to enable the contractor to come in to do palliative work.
In specific terms, what are the strategies that have worked for you in this assignment and the results?
In a nutshell, what we used to get to where we are at the moment included enforcement, a clear traffic management direction and stakeholders engagement. We met with the stakeholders almost on daily basis, allowing everybody to say what they wanted to say, but we knew what we wanted to do. We also developed an operational manual which we took to the stakeholders and it was adopted. After that, we started implementation.
So, we have a clear traffic management direction which we followed and are still following. We also have a manual call up system which is transparent to the stakeholders so they believe in it. We use the trade unions which we interface with and they usually take us to the shipping companies for discussions. We have incorporated more people into the task team and that has helped us a great deal. We have support from the Lagos State government. The NPA has also been of much help. We have been enjoying co-operation also from the truck unions and the Shippers Council. Both Apapa local government and the residents association have been very supportive because everybody sees Apapa as a problem.
Apapa residents, business owners and motorists celebrate the improvement and respite they have seen so far. But the question on every lip is, how sustainable is the present situation?
I have said earlier that we have a holistic plan in place on how to make Apapa work again. Our job was supposed to end in 30 days and the next phase would take off. We have started seeing part of that next phase. Today, containers are moved by rail from Ebute Emetta. This will continue and the former minister for Transportation, Rotimi Amechi, assured that rail service would be extended to Apapa from December this year. Part of the plan is for LASTMA to manage traffic; FRSC is to ensure the road worthiness of the trucks and the police is to provide adequate security. In addition to all these, the NPA is perfecting plans to introduce an electronic call up system.
There were some companies that consistently defied ‘vacate the bridge order’. What has your team done about them; they are no longer seen as before?
All the manufacturing concerns in this port city including Dangote, Flour Mill, Bua, etc, are no longer seen on the road during the day. We have created movement time for them from 12 midnight to 3am. From 10 pm, we start clearing the road for them to come in and they move within 2-3 hours. Dangote alone constitute about 30 percent of this operation. We are also pushing the terminal operators to up their game. We have a lot of issues with them. We are yet to achieve our best because of their lapses. These issues have to do with the 2006 concession. I don’t want to go into the details.
Extortion by security agencies and other members of the task team is still going on. What are you doing to check that?
Yes, the extortion is still ongoing but it has reduced drastically. There are still too many agencies on the road and some people come to direct traffic for their own selfish gains. We are working on that.
When the vice president came on projects inspection, he promised improved infrastructure in and around Apapa. What is happening with that now?
If you notice now, a lot of roads repair are going on. The federal government is fixing many roads. The federal ministry of Work has fixed Ijora Road to Marine Beach; Lagos state government has also fixed Iganmu Road to Ijora Bridge. Today, Liverpool Road is under reconstruction, the drainage has gone more than 400 square metres and there are a lot of public utilities to be relocated. If you go to Creek Road, you will see that the road is closed because the contractor is about to pour the concrete paving. This is to terminate at the foot of Liverpool Bridge. Wharf Road has been reconstructed by Dangote, Flour Mill and NPA. The Tin Can Trailer Park is already open and in use. We opened it before completion because it was taking too long. At Lilypond, there is light now, newly installed, and water is also running.
There is no success story without its flipside. What have been your challenges doing all these?
Communication is a major challenge. This is because there is a limit to which you can communicate to the stakeholders. NPA and the Shippers Council who are regulators are the ones that should be communicating. We need to tell the truckers how to move and how not to move. Trucks approaching Apapa port should come through Iganmu and Ijora until Apapa Oshodi Expressway is ready. But what you see now is a situation where they come from every direction. This is because we don’t have access to all the stakeholders. Also, we need to communicate to them that Lilypond is ready and this is how and when you should come. We don’t have the capacity to do that. It is the job of the NPA.
Another challenge is that the area is too militarized. A lot of people come from different military formations to make fast money. There had been too many tasks force and they are yet to leave the scene. When they come, they come with aggression and are very vicious. Again the roads reconstruction is also a challenge because that is not making traffic management options possible.
Another major challenge is that we see corruption fighting back. The people we have prevented from the regular ‘chop-chop’ are busy spreading wrong information about us and trying to frustrate the current effort, but we are determined to make the system work again. We are gearing up for the next stage of our assignment which is sustainability. We are working with all the agencies that will sustain this effort, and very soon, when Lagos State government appoints its commissioners for transportation and environment, we will get there faster.
