Despite the nightmarish gridlock on Apapa roads caused by hundreds of trucks struggling to get into various tank farms around the metropolis, a new tank farm is springing up on Creek Road.
BusinessDay findings indicate that the tank farm under construction has the capacity to hold up to 50 million litres of petroleum products, which can serve about 800 trucks per day shift.
Granting approval for the construction of a new tank farm capable of receiving 800 more trucks in addition to the over 6,000 trucks that besiege the city daily according to industry estimates, seems like testing the limits of insanity.
Efforts to get details about the owners proved abortive, as heavy security presence around the premises was meant as deterrent. However, residents and those who work around the vicinity decried the impunity of erecting another tank farm at a time when clarion calls for relocation of tank farms have reached fever pitch.
“Who even gave them permit to build this tank farm here when we are looking for ways to remove the ones already here,” Adeola Akinmade, who works in a retail store around Creek Road, asked.
In September 2017, the Lagos State House of Assembly called on the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to relocate the tank farms in Apapa to a less congested area, saying they were causing traffic logjam and endangering the lives of the residents.
Mojisola Miranda, a member representing Apapa Constituency 1, who raised the issue under matter of urgent public importance during plenary, said the activities of the tanker drivers in Apapa were not only affecting traffic in the area, but that they had extended to other parts of the state.
In April this year, the Lagos State government said that it had initiated talks with the Federal Government on how to relocate oil tank farms from the residential areas of the Apapa Central Business District and claimed that it had stopped granting approval for the construction of filling stations in all parts of the state until the inventory of the existing ones was concluded.
“It is confounding why another tank farm is springing up here with all the troubles tankers are causing,” Luke Anaba, who works in a shipping company along Creek Road, said.
Beyond the menace of traffic logjams, residents say the tanker operators defecate on the roadside since some spend a week or more waiting to load their tankers. This constitutes health hazards to the community. Also, residents say crime is on the rise as phones and purses are reportedly snatched in the night. BusinessDay gathered that a lady, fled with stab wounds to escape being raped last week.
Traffic on most mornings stretches up to Fadeyi on Ikorodu road on the day the tankers are let loose on Apapa. Commuters are stranded for hours on end with many arriving their places of work after midday.
Experts warn that it is wrong to cite tank farms in an area designated for port operations. Other countries have laws that prevent citing tanks farms 25km away from residential areas.
“There is an over-concentration of oil tank farms in Apapa, an area predominantly designed for port operations. There is now a situation where we have proliferation of oil tank farms without regards for the safety logistics implication. I issued a warning over five years ago, advising government to discontinue tank farm operations in Apapa, but nothing was done. The problem is now staring all of us in the face,” Vicky Haastrup, chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN).
