Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and the continent’s most populous nation, is a great lesson on impunity and this explains why 25 days after the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, ordered a 72-hour joint operation to clear the gridlock in Apapa caused by stationary trailers, the situation is getting worse instead of improving incrementally as expected.
Since the VP’s visit, Apapa has moved from bad to worse with surging trailers and tankers who seem to have defied both the VP and the taskforce set up to force them out and end their siege on the dilapidated roads and bridges that lead to the premier port city adjudged the busiest in West Africa.
This action only speaks to our life as a nation where people allow personal interest to override collective considerations and also becloud their sense of moral judgment which ought to consider the right of the other man to comfort and convenience.
Osinbajo, who made the unscheduled visit to the port city to assess the traffic situation, directed relevant government agencies to immediately embark on the decongestion of the bridges and roads on which trailers and tankers were indiscriminately and mindlessly parked.
He directed that the operation should be carried out by collaborative efforts of the Police, Nigeria Navy, Nigeria Army, the Nigeria Air Force, FRSC and the NSCDC, LASTMA, LASEMA, Container truck drivers, National Association of Road Transport Owners, NUPENG, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria.
The vice president followed this up five days later, precisely on July 26, 2018 with a meeting in Apapa with maritime unions, businesses, residents and other stakeholders over Apapa-Oshodi Expressway which has collapsed and has been rendered impassable by the rampaging trailers and tankers, yet the truckers are not only around, but have become more audacious.
It is becoming, increasingly, clear that the Federal Government has no solution to the traffic jigsaw in Apapa, fueling the thinking in some quarters that there are too many vested interests in this truck business that are bent on frustrating efforts at finding sustainable solution to the Apapa problem.
The trailers and tankers have come back so forcefully that they have not only over-stepped the one-lane order which confines them to a single file on the roads, but they have also come back to the bridges which they were chased away and forbidden from parking on.
As at Tuesday this week, the trucks have resumed their siege on the roads and bridges, extending their occupation of Apapa-Oshodi Expressway to Ilasamaja from Mile 2, and beyond the National Stadium on the Western Avenue axis. All the adjoining bridges to Apapa bridge are occupied at the moment.
“It has been a big problem and the experience on getting to Apapa is, once again, a nightmare,” said Tony Anakebe, a port operator and member of freight forwarders association of Nigeria, lamenting that the temporary relief brought by the vice president’s visit has vanished too soon.
“This is not helping issues; the problem seems to persist indefinitely; businesses continue to slide to their lowest level. It takes us almost two weeks to get our containers loaded after finishing with the customs and while waiting for those two weeks, you are paying demurrage. At the end of the day, who bears the brunt; it is the poor masses as we importers shift the burden to them in the form of high prices of goods. This has serious implications not only on the economy of the nation but also the individual business men and investors in the country,” Anakebe said.
Motorists have stories of woe to tell as they have over six hours to drive in and out of Apapa on daily basis. “It is so sad that access to the only viable port in Nigeria is not motor-able, yet we claim we are Africa’s largest economy,” a motorist who identified himself simply as Wale told BusinessDay.
Wale noted that severally directives have been given to these trucks to leave the road, but it seems they have become more powerful than the government. It will be recalled that before the Vice President’s order, the Lagos State government had also set up a joint operation committee involving security agencies and stakeholders.
Tagged ‘Operation Restore Sanity On Lagos Roads,’ the committee comprised 1,000 policemen, 500 officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), 100 officers of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), 120 officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), and 250 personnel of the Nigerian military including army, air force and the navy.
The state government had also instructed the truck owners to utilise the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (ABAT) Truck Terminal at Orile Igamu to reduce traffic gridlock in Apapa area, but that facility is yet to materialize several years after it was initiated.
Gradually but steadily, Apapa is degenerating into a wasteland and there is no sense of urgency on the part of government to salvage the port city from where billions of Naira revenue accrue to both the state and federal government on daily basis.
At the Apapa meeting which was also attended by the Akinwumi Ambode, Lagos State governor; Rotimi Amaechi, Minister for Transportation, and Hadiza Bala-Usman, managing director of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), the Vice President assured that the anticipated reconstruction of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway would commence within two weeks as part of federal government’s resolve to finding lasting solution to the chaos in Apapa.
It is over three weeks since after that meeting yet Apapa and its roads are not only bad, they are worse, stressing out motorists, suffocating businesses and emasculating residents in a degraded environment.
CHUKA UROKO & MICHAEL ANI
