Over the last one week, businesses and commuters including residential owners have been having trouble accessing Apapa port city, following the early return of traffic congestion on the roads leading to Nigeria’s busiest seaports, Apapa and Tin-Can Island ports.
As a result, there has been an increase in man-hour losses on Apapa roads due to the bad traffic situation such that commuters were left with the option of either making use of illegal one-way driving or spending over four to five hours on the road, just to have access into Apapa.
A recent BusinessDay visit to Apapa-Ijora-Wharf through the Western Avenue, revealed that the gridlock was largely due to poor management of traffic on road as drivers of trucks and oil tankers as well as other articulated vehicles, were violating the ground rule of occupying a lane leaving the other lane to allow other commuters access into Apapa.
It was also discovered that the officers of the Nigerian Navy and soldiers, who used to institute serious traffic management and discipline among drivers of these heavy duty vehicles, have been absent from the road since the resumption of work after the Christmas and New Year holidays, thereby resulting to serious gridlock.
“Since after the holiday period, we have not seen the naval officers on the road. We only see the Police officers and Civil Defense on the road and you know Nigerian Police, once you give them tips, they allow you access without considering the consequences,” said a truck driver, who identified himself as Idowu Aremu.
According to him, these Police officers are only after their personal gains and once I pay them as much as N5, 000, you don’t expect me to be on the queue again for days. “This is the situation, we find ourselves and we all are in a hurry to go to the port to drop empty containers and take up another one because turnover is business. I cannot make money by spending days on the road.”
Jonathan Nicole, President, Shippers Association of Lagos State, who spoke to BusinessDay in a telephone interview, said that the poor condition of the access roads into Apapa and Tin-Can Island ports, have been a major challenge to doing business at the ports.
This, according to him, has been pushing up the cost of doing business for shippers and manufacturers, whose goods and raw materials spend days and weeks before getting to their warehouses.
“The longer these consignment spend without clearing them from the ports and offloading to return empty containers back to the ports, shippers pay more to shipping companies as demurrage for occupying the containers and storage charges to terminal operators for occupying space in the terminal,” he said.
Continuing, he said: “Government has refused to take decisive steps towards ameliorating the problems rather they pile-up pressure on Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and other agencies at the ports to oppress shippers, who pay all the taxes with ridiculous tariff in order to generate more revenue for government. This is why Nigeria’s Customs tariff is still terribly high compared to what obtains in neighbouring ports in Cotonou,” Nicole explained.
Commenting, Vicky Haastrup, chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), who commended the NPA and other arms of government for taking necessary steps to repair the damaged roads leading in and out of the ports, said that government need to go a step further to institute effective measures to ensure free flow of traffic.
“At present, trucks coming into the ports to evacuate cargoes are not being able to access the ports because they are trapped on the road. This is dangerous for port business and for the economy because the situation could lead to port congestion. It could also lead to higher inflation and shipping companies will soon slam congestion surcharge on Nigerian ports,” she said.
She recalled that the congestion surcharge slammed on the ports by multinational shipping companies before port concession amounted to about $100 million annually, adding that there is need to avoid the reoccurrence.
“Government should, as a matter of urgency, deploy traffic and security personnel including officers of Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Army in large number to Apapa to ensure free flow of traffic. These traffic officials should work in shifts to enable them work 24 hours round-the-clock on the road,” the STOAN boss suggested.
She further pointed to the need to ensure that necessary checks and balances are put in place to ensure that these officials do their work in an appropriate manner, “this will ensure free flow of traffic and full blown congestion will be averted.”
Spokesperson of the Lagos State police command, Chike Oti, could not however, confirm whether or not naval personnel had been withdrawn from being part of the traffic management team in Apapa.
Oti told BusinessDay that the police were primarily charged with the responsibility of controlling traffic, and where sister security agencies are drafted in, it is only to give a helping hand, as road traffic management is not their core responsibility.
He, nevertheless, explained that the traffic situation in Apapa was receiving the best of attention from the police deployed on the bridges and the roads.
“The traffic situation in Apapa has not overwhelmed the police. As we speak, the police are on the roads and bridges giving their best notwithstanding the situation around that axis,” Oti said.
He further said that the Lagos police command will be having a stakeholders’ meeting in Apapa today (Thursday) to advance discussions around safety and security in the state and seek to further strengthen traffic management apparatus in within the port precincts.
JOSHUA BASSEY & AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
