Petroleum marketers, tanker drivers and members of NUPENG operating around the Ibru petroleum products Jetty in Lagos have called on the Federal Government and the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) to urgently rehabilitate the Tin Can Island Port portion of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway as the bad roads is already affecting tank farm operations.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that the Federal Government had commissioned the Tin Can Island port on 14 October, 1977 to complement the Apapa port as shipping and import activities exponentially intensified.
With the port came the Tin Can Island dual carriageway to aid cargo evacuation and complement the existing routes of Apapa-Ijora-Western Avenue and the Mile 2-Oshodi/Mile 2 Badagry expressway. However, since 1977, there has not been any rehabilitation of the Tin Can Port expressway.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily at Integrated Oil and Gas Depot last week, one of the operators who identified himself as Sylvester Obi pointed out that as the ceaseless downpour of rain worsens, the situation of the Tin Can Island potholes has deteriorated into gullies. He said that this has driven container laden trucks to block the expressway around Coconut bus stop thereby disturbing activities at the tank farms.
Also speaking with our correspondent at Ascon petroleum tank farm, a chieftain of the PTD Branch; Comrade Tajudeen Olawale said that sometimes, fully loaded petroleum trucks find it difficult to make their way out of the depots, because container trucks have queued up on the access road for them to exit.
He pointed that, “for now, depots that have products are all loading, but the problem is that as the trucks are surging towards the depot to pick their products while loaded ones are going out, so also, container trucks are surging towards Tin Can Island Port to drop their containers, while those that have dropped are waiting to pick another cargo before they leave the port” he said
He noted since April 2015, tankers navigating towards MRS tank farm beside PTML Terminal inside the Tin Can Port have been having difficulties. He said the short distance between Coconut Bridge and the Tin Can gate could take trucks four hours when there is no vehicle breakdown.
On his part, a petroleum marketer; at Ibeto Depot at Ibru yard; Mr. Fidel Ose alleged that the traffic situation has been compounded because Customs officers and NPA officers do not operate 24 hours at the port as they usually claim.
He said that downstream operators at the tank farms have come to realize that cargoes only start leaving the Tin Can port from 2pm daily and this stops at about 5pm. He said that container laden trucks do not move at night as they are supposed to, and that this was why they usually contest the roads with tankers during the day.
“We wish that Nigerian ports operations can work for 24 hours because as it is, we don’t see cargoes moving at night, it’s like the authority to release the cargoes begins as from 2’0clock and stops at 5pm, after this there is no more”
“We all know that the Tin Can axis is so bad, the only available space that we have here, container laden trucks are parked there, you see them queuing to drop their empty containers into the port, most times in the morning, cargoes don’t leave the port, maybe it is because of the procedures in their clearing, most of the cargoes start leaving as from 3 ‘0clock”
“It is like the loading of trucks at the port begins from 2’0clock, this is one of the major causes of the gridlock. If they are working 24hours, as trucks are moving out, more would be coming in by the hour”
“Government should come and fix up the road within tin can port. On the right hand of the express, there are three gullies that once a tanker goes into it, it would not come out, coming from Liverpool to coconut is another big problem” he said
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