Stakeholders are becoming increasingly agitated over the near-abandonment and inactivity at the eastern ports while congestion remains the order of the day in Apapa where two of the nation’s seaports are located.
Within the last seven months, several meetings held to discuss a workable solution to the logjam in Apapa have not failed to raise questions as to why governments over time seem not bothered by the recurring huge losses associated with the traffic crisis that continues to bedevil Apapa.
Industry stakeholders- business owners, importers, maritime and transport operators say the staggering sums of money being lost to the gridlock in Apapa should give a nation in dire need of development and growth cause to worry.
Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Group and Africa’s richest man, puts the losses to businesses and residents of Apapa as result of the imbroglio at about N86 billion on daily basis.
Dangote while inspecting a section of Ijora-Wharf road being jointly rehabilitated by AG Dangote, Flour Mills Plc, and Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), at the cost of N4.3 billion, condemned the challenges posed by traffic jam on the major routes leading to the nation’s largest port.
“People don’t really understand how much money businesses are losing because of the gridlock here; if you quantify it in billions, it is 20 times the cost of this project every single day,” said Dangote.
Stakeholders’ concerns border on why the ports in Onne, Rivers State, Warri, Delta, Calabar, Cross River State among others remain grossly under-utilised, such that the Apapa and Tin Can ports now account for 75 to 80 percent of shipping activities, serving an estimated 200 million population.
In recent meetings over the ugly experiences in Apapa, speakers admitted the challenges of the eastern ports to be narrow and shallow water channels, as well as insecurity, as it relates to the activities of pirates, but they also observed that these challenges are not insurmountable.
According to them, what is required is the political will by the Federal Government to dredge the channels and improve the level of maritime security in that part of the country.
The point of the argument, according to many of the stakeholders, is that it makes no economic sense that goods are cleared in Lagos, and trucked by road to Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Nnewi and other cities within the old eastern region, whereas ports closer to these cities are left idle. This, to them, increases the cost of doing business, with the final consumers paying throat their noses to access goods and services through the value chain.
Remi Ogungbemi, president of Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) during the recent meeting convened by Vice President Osinbajo, in Lagos, added a perspective to the ongoing debate. According to Ogungbemi, the Apapa ports with their limited facilities and infrastructure are overstretched as they handle cargoes in excess of their capacities.
He explained that while the volume of cargoes and shipping activities have increased over the decades, infrastructure within the ports have not seen any significant expansion, hence inspection and clearing of goods are slow, resulting in thousands of trucks making their way to ports being held down on the roads.
He believed the spillover from the Apapa ports can be accommodated at ports in Rivers, Cross Rivers, Delta and other states, if those ports are revived and made to function optimally.
His views are shared by Akinwunmi Ambode, the Lagos State governor, who said it was high time the Federal Government developed ports in other states, so as to free Lagos, particularly Apapa of the current mess.
At a town hall meeting at Iberekodo, Ibeju Lekki, last week, Ambode said the federal authorities needed to do everything to revive existing ports in other states to end the perennial traffic congestion in Apapa.
“It would be unfair to Lagosians if I don’t talk about issues relating to traffic management and integrated transport management most especially what we have witnessed in the last one week in Apapa.
“It is bad that we still use trucks to lift petroleum products from Apapa to other parts of the country. As it is now, other ports in Nigeria must begin to work immediately to decongest gridlock in Lagos. We believe that this will allow the roads to become free. We don’t need to continue to use tax payers’ money to build road that were destroyed by tankers”.
