When the Nigerian Navy with the Lagos State government gave a marching order to the numerous trailers and tankers that had taken residence on the Apapa bridges to leave those bridges within seven days, the order was dismissed as ‘one of those things’, but the compliance level to the order so far, which is almost total, resulting in free bridges and free access to the port city says it all that a lot of things are possible in Nigeria if the commitment and the resolve to get result are there, writes CHUKA UROKO
The whole picture is still vague, faint and distant. The story sounds unreal, unbelievable yet it is true, that the two major bridges that lead to Apapa, the premier port city in Nigeria, is at last free of rampaging trailers and tankers that infested them like ants around faggots.
For everybody that has anything to do with or in this port city, including motorists, port users/operators, businesses, sundry visitors, and the hapless residents, what has happened is beyond description and comprehension. It is simply a new dawn; a new era that underscores a lot of things that are possible in Nigeria.
In the last 10 years, Apapa has been in the news for the wrong reason. Above every other thing, it became notorious for traffic gridlock. Several efforts to bring sanity to this part of a state that prides itself as a mega city and one of the Rockefeller’s 100 resilient cities in the world failed, including the reconstruction of the major route to the ports—Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
Going to Apapa became a nightmare and to tell somebody your home, office, business or social event was in that part of town was to be avoided like leprosy. And so businesses died and residences became empty and desolate, giving way to rats and rodents which became lords of the manors.
But now the storm appears over, following a ‘vacate the bridge order’ given by the Nigerian Navy and the Lagos State government which has pushed the trailers to the fringes, creating some degree of sanity in and around this port city that had been dismissed as a wasteland by residents and businesses.
What has happened in Apapa is simply a reflection of what is possible in Nigeria where a lot of things have gone wrong. Whether one is looking at the state of infrastructure in the country, especially national monuments like the national stadium, national theatre, the federal secretariat and the Defence Building on Lagos Island, or the economic assets such as the Ajaokuta Steel Company, and the decaying oil refineries, the story is the same.
Though all the joy and euphoria that greeted the Navy’s feat in Apapa are still couched in slender skin and laced with suspended apprehension, the fact remains that the bridges are free and residents and businesses can, once again, access their homes and premises. And it only took the decision and commitment of one person or group to make that happen, and it did.
“That the trucks are not yet back is simply because there is enforcement. If the navy officers should leave the bridges for just one day, the trucks will be back. So, it is clear now that earlier vacate orders failed because there was no enforcement and no commitment by the government to see the order through”, said Emmanuel Ameke, a port user, who spoke to BDSUNDAY.
That Nigeria is still exporting crude oil and importing the refined product at twice the price of the crude is because the country is still led by people who are blinded by greed, daft in their thinking, shortsighted in their world view, and pathologically predatory in their orientation and disposition.
Nobody wants anything to work because some people profit from the rot. Boko Haram insurgents and their younger brothers, the Fulani Herdsmen, in the Northern part of Nigeria are neither “decimated nor crushed” like the harmless agitators for self-determination in the South Eastern part of the country because people are benefiting from their actions and there is no commitment to ending their onslaught.
Nigeria has always had bright and brilliant ideas, policies and programmes which, if implemented, would create a country that could truly raise its head as the giant of Africa with unassailable economic and political power on the continent. But the country cannot rise above its present fledgling status because ideas and policies die at birth or are driven by self-seekers who only plan to fail.
Time without number, stakeholders meetings involving representatives of the federal government had been held on how to get the trailers off Apapa roads. Far reaching decisions had been taken on how to repair the roads and end the suffocating gridlock that defines the port city. But none worked because nobody was committed, not even the government which has the statutory duty to take the lead.
The federal government in November 2010 awarded the contract for the reconstruction of the Apapa Oshodi Expressway, another major route to the two ports in Apapa. The contract has an accompaniment of a trailer park that has the capacity to take off about 500 trucks from the expressway.
Eight years after, the contractors—Julius Berger and Borini Prono—are still on a round robin with the project because the government is not releasing funds to the contractors. That is lack of commitment to a project that would have raised not just the profile of the port city, but also increased the revenue from the ports.
That the Apapa bridges are now largely free and passable is because the navy has shown commitment and resolve to ‘maintain the peace’. They did not only give the order and then went to sleep. They are there working 24/7 to enforce the order and to ensure the ‘culprits’ are complying with the order.
When the Federal Government awarded the contract on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway which cost tax payers about N62 billion, there was no follow-through and that is why till today, Borini Prono has not taken off on its own side of the contract- the Oshodi bound carriageway which has become a death trap.
How this neglect and lack of government commitment has affected Apapa as a maritime business hub is better left to the imagination. But it has to be pointed out that the siege which the trailers laid to the port city for years has inflicted damage of monumental proportions on the Apapa economy.
There have been business losses, drastic fall in property values and reduction in revenue generated at the ports. Indeed, the Apapa economy, which is estimated at N20 billion a day, has been badly bruised and battered. Property values have come down by close to 50 percent; many businesses have relocated and poor access to the ports has left many goods stock at the ports, forcing the owners to pay demurrage.
“The economy of Apapa is over N20 billion a day. To allow this kind of situation to be impacting on that economy means a lot of money is being lost on daily basis not only by the businesses, but also by the country”, said Paul Gbadedo, group managing director, Flour Mills, in an interview with journalists.
Aliko Dangote, president/CE, Dangote Group, agrees, saying, “It is not good that these trucks are packed on the bridges. They are supposed to be passing loads and not stationary loads on the bridges and we have to do everything we can to move them away from the bridges because of the potential risk their continued stay poses to life and property”.
Apapa residents and the motorists are now calling on the Federal Government to take advantage of the compliance to the vacate order on the bridge to do a comprehensive integrity test on the bridges and also resurface them because the joints are now all out, causing wear and tear on vehicles.
Civil and structural engineers had warned of the danger in parking those trucks on the bridges. Gabriel Ojo, a civil engineer at Sanni, Ojo & Partners Consulting Limited, had warned that “Though it is most unlikely that the bridges structure and integrity will be adversely affected from the point of view of overload from the ‘empty’ trucks, many of those trucks are not in perfect condition”.
“And because many of them are not in perfect condition, they are likely to have oils, including petrol, diesel, engine oil, brake oil etc, dripping on the bridges; these oils are organic solvents that naturally dissolve the asphalt topping and cause the bridges topping and the decks to deteriorate very fast,” he explained.
Femi Akintunde, a structural engineer and GMD/CEO, AMFacilities, affirms, stressing however, that heavy duty trucks packed at close proximity to one another and in static condition over a long period of time have adverse impact on the bridges. “What this implies is that the combined weight of the vehicles packed in this condition will be far more than what the bridge was designed to carry under normal condition”.
Continuing, he said, “the implication of this situation is that the higher concentration of the static load of these closely parked trucks on the bridge will subject its structures to high degrees of stress at the various joints and support joints than normal, leading to faster wear and tear at critical points which ultimately puts the structural integrity of the bridges at great risk of collapse or catastrophic failure”.
In light of the above, therefore, forcing the trucks out of the bridges is a good step, but the next better step is to do a comprehensive test on their integrity and structural stability to avert any eventuality.
CHUKA UROKO
