Apparently reacting to prolonged drop in sales, occasioned by the bad state of the roads leading to Apapa, automobile dealers at the popular Berger Automobile market located on the Apapa Oshodi expressway have started relocating from the market.
Investigations by Shipping Position Daily confirmed that there has been a mass exodus of automobile dealers out of the African biggest automobile market, to places like, FESTAC, Amuwo Odofin, Ikeja, Ijesha .
When Shipping Position Daily visited the African biggest automobile market last week, it was observed that though there seems to be an ongoing road reconstruction on the axis, the project looks like it has been abandoned.
Speaking with our correspondent at the market last week, the president of National Dealers Forum (NDF) Mr. James Brown Nwaokuke, confirmed that some dealers have been moving some of their vehicles out of the place to some other areas that they have acquired, adding that they still have some of their vehicles at Berger.
Nwaokuke maintained that the relocation shows that the people are actually expanding their coast and not that they are leaving Berger He explained that some of them have acquired new properties in some areas and decided to sample some of their vehicles at those new locations.
“It has been long that people started diversifying, I didn’t see it that they are leaving Berger, I see it that they are establishing branches.
There is nothing wrong in someone having offices elsewhere, they still have some of their vehicles here they are just opening branches elsewhere”;
He also acknowledged that the dilapidated state of the road has been a major nigh mare to dealers at the market.
“The thing is not that they moved their vehicles out of this place, most of them acquired properties somewhere outside Berger and they decided to sample some of their cars there, so there is nothing wrong there. The issue is that whole road situation is affecting Berger generally, we are not doing anything here, and transactions have been very dull. In the area of business it has been zero in this place for a long time now”, he said.
The auto dealers also complained that truck drivers and motor-boys have converted the once clean road to their house where they bath and ease themselves at will.
Nwaokuke, also said that the association has tried as much as it can to address some of the issues by engaging presidents of the association, but all their attempts yielded no fruits. “Truck drivers now use the front of the market as their homes, toilets, bathrooms and all that”.
He alleged that the truck drivers are being empowered by Naval officers,” they collect money from them and park them there as long as they want to stay. We have tried our best in addressing the issue by going to some of their officers to tell them what is happening but they paid deaf ears to that. The people that left Berger is not in any way affecting activities here, they have their properties there, they are still here and there some of their vehicles are here and there too”, he said.
Also speaking, the President of United Berger Motor Dealers (UBMD), Metche Nnadiekwe said that the exodus of some dealers have not affected the activities in the market.
He explained that the federal government should be grateful to the automobile market for the level of employment it has been able to provide for the nation’s youths.
“Well there is no law that states that no one is not allowed to go out of Berger ,that is one and by the grace of God we have been trying our best, He has been making it possible for us to have foods on our tables. We are all aware of the congested state of the road here, they are terribly bad, the tanker drivers are everywhere. So they deprive us of some customers who are supposed to come and patronize us and because of that some people who felt that they cannot have patience to wait for the end of this thing, the decided to go and they went, live goes on. You know everybody cannot move at the same time, it’s just a few minute numbers of persons that are not more than two or three. It has not been affecting us, market does not know whether one person didn’t come or not, this is the biggest and largest automobile market in the whole world. Like I said Nigeria should be very proud of this market, it is giving employment to graduates that are out of school with nothing to lay hands on, a lot is happening here”, he said.
Metche, disclosed that there have been several attempts by the leaders of the market to discuss with the National Union of Petroleum Exportation and Natural Gas (NUPENG) and other relevant truckers association to address the issue, but all their attempts seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
“So if they think that if they leave this place will collapse or not, I don’t know as you can see that the place is intact and we are okay?
Several times we have tried to complain to NUPENG and the heads of those trucks we don’t want to go into fight or quarrel with anybody because that is not why we are here. They have been saying that they will do something about that and we have not yet seen any result but we are very hopeful that one day everything will fall in right places”
According to him, “We have tremendously lost a lot of money, we are therefore pleading with the federal government to come to our aid, let it not look like we have government and these things are happening like this. Nigerians are suffering; the government should do something very fast to get these trucks out of here, even though some of the people at the top some of these vehicles belong to them” he said.
Many of the dealers who have moved their vehicles out of the Berger Market failed to comment when approached by our correspondent.
An attempt to speak with one of the dealers, identified as Mr. Ephraim, who left the market to somewhere in FESTAC didn’t yield fruit as he refused to speak with our correspondent when he was called last week
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