Vice Chairman of Ibru Organization, owners of the popular Ibru Jetty located around Ibafon area of Apapa Oshodi expressway; Olorogun Oscar Ibru has lampooned the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) alleging that the agency is not alive to its responsibilities.
Oscar stated this yesterday while addressing journalists at the flag-off of palliative repairs on the failed portions of the Apapa Oshodi expressway.
He lamented that despite several appeals to the NPA to bring one of its dredgers, Sea Lion to dredge the access to Ibru jetty, NPA has refused.
He said that the jetty is being maintained privately, but NPA collects money from his organization. He maintained that his conglomerate is now making plans to engage a private company to dredge the channel to the jetty.
Ibru said that the palliative works embarked upon on the expressway will gulp N230million and these are private contributions from stakeholders around the jetty, banks and Sifax Group. He however said that anyone who fails to pay fulfill their pledges towards the project will not be allowed to bring in their vessels to Ibru jetty anymore.
While lamenting the NPA’s uncaring attitude towards the Ibru Jetty, he said “I am getting ready to start dredging to make it easier for everybody, I am not asking for contribution from anybody, I am doing it on my own because the Nigerian Ports Authority has refused to help us, they have dredgers and the port actually belongs to them, this is a private jetty, but we pay dues to the Nigerian Ports Authority, for this. I think they (NPA) should be able to help us when we asked and we begged for them to bring Sea Lion; one of their dredgers”
“They normally sweep the channel itself, so we don’t see the big deal why they cannot sweep our jetty too. Now we had to contract a private company to come and do it and this is very expensive for the Ibru Organization, but it is necessary for the people who are owning properties and building their tank farms on our property to be able to have access to the jetty for them to operate”, he fumed.
On the construction of the Apapa Oshodi expressway leading to the Tin Can Island Port, he urged the Federal Government to liaise with the Lagos State Government to fix the road, saying that many businesses have been affected by the bad roads, and that some of the tank farms inside the Ibru complex are now lying fallow.
On the contribution towards the palliative, he stressed that, “the whole project is a contribution from the stakeholders, we have a system, we don’t force anybody to do what they don’t want to do, this is why we have decided to come out so that they can see us leading by example and by so doing, it would prompt them to respond. On the other hand, if they don’t, I am going to ask them not to come to my jetty anymore”
“The bad roads have affected the businesses because vessels no longer come to the jetty because they cannot remove their products from the tanks, trucks cannot come in, and people with smaller tanks at comfortable locations are getting all the business. Total is one of the largest tank farm but they have stopped coming here”, he said.
At a stakeholders meeting which held earlier inside Oscar Ibru’s office, Chairman of Committee of Directors and Technical Committee of Stakeholders operating around the tank farms, Sabitu Ajadi said that the stakeholders decided to come together and fix the failed portions of the road in order to bring back their businesses.
According to him, for the past five years, all the depots inside Ibru jetty have been performing below 30 percent due to the bad access road. He noted that the palliative work is going to last a period of three months and it is costing the operators N230million.
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