Port users and commuters are now breathing a sigh of relief over the palliative work that was recently applied on the Mile 2 to Tin Can Island Port section of the Oshodi – Apapa expressway, by construction company, AG Dangote.
Shipping Position Daily correspondent who visited the axis last week reported that vehicles can now drive freely on the Oshodi-Apapa expressway from Mile 2 bus stop through Coconut bus stop down to Tin Can Island port second gate.
One of the port stakeholders, Mr Dom Onyeka told our correspondent that for the very first time in several years, he was able to drive his vehicle from Mile 2 to Apapa.
Also speaking with Shipping Position Daily, Chairman of Association of Nigeria Licensed Custom Agents (ANLCA) at Tin Can Island Port; Prince Segun Oduntan confirmed that there has been an improvement on the access road inwards and outward Apapa since Dangote commenced work.
He however called on the contractor to speed up work on the major construction of the access road in view of the yuletide and festivities coming up in December.
He warned that at that time, importation would be at its peak and bad access would precipitate port congestion.
"There have been some improvements so far, we just hope that it keeps on like that, we cannot wait to have our port access to be 100 percent free of traffic, with palliative, we hope that things would continue to be better so that in the yuletide that is coming, we would be able to have hitch free operations, because the congestion at that time would be so terrible", he noted.
Already, Oduntan said that due to the bad access roads, clearing agents have defined a means of ameliorating the situation by discharging vehicles out of containers somewhere within the Tin Can port perimeters.
The ANLCA chairman said that in order to avoid cost of hiring trucks and transportation, vehicles are emptied within the premises of Conoil filling station at Tin Can second gate.
He said the facility is not a bonded terminal, "But because of the traffic situation around, instead of taking your container to Ikeja, Ikorodu or wherever, it is easier here, this approach came up due to the problem of the congestion, it is another way of saying instead of us putting all the trailers on the road, let us empty the containers here and return them"
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