The port city of Apapa is home to Nigeria’s two foremost ports which are currently being managed by nine terminal operators. Between the two ports called Lagos Port Complex and Tin Can Island Port, more than 65 percent of dry cargoes and about 90 per cent of the nation’s liquid (petroleum products) are handled. This is because it hosts about 23 tank farms (and still counting). These are in addition to the many shipping companies/agencies, licensed customs offices and numerous other businesses that are located in this port city. On a normal day, Apapa is a busy city, with heavy vehicular and human traffic; this is in addition to other human endeavours that take place there. The port city of Apapa equally plays host to countless number of banks and several port- related activities.
The port city is sandwiched in between highbrow residential areas like Apapa GRA, Beachland estate, and low income residential areas such as Ajegunle and Ijora, it also shares boundaries with a couple of riverside settlements.
Apapa is linked to the rest of the city by two major highways; the Apapa – Oshodi expressway and Apapa-Ijora road. Of course, it can also be approached by water from Mile Two (on the mainland) and Marina axis (on the Island). Apapa also services as a good link for motorists going to Lagos Island and beyond, serving hundreds of such from many local governments.
There are also scores of articulated trucks which on daily basis freight containers and millions of tonnes of bulk cargoes to different parts of the country.
As for the tank farms, which have become unwelcome co-stakeholders in the port city, they receive several tankers which also load petroleum products daily from different depots to different parts of the country. These trucks also come into Lagos empty, but they leave fully loaded with products, thus contributing their quota to the poor state of the roads and the already debilitating vehicular traffic in and around Apapa and indeed the metropolis. Apapa expressway is too strategic to the nation’s economy, because, it also links the port city to the popular Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Ikeja.
These are the obvious reasons for the debilitating traffic which anyone who has business in Apapa or who lives there have had to contend with for more than 10 years.
The losses incurred by individuals, corporate organisations and importantly the government are better imagined than calculated. Similarly, a lot of man- hours are lost daily as motorists are trapped in traffic to and from Apapa.
Sadly however, the Federal Government which owns this strategic highway appears to be playing politics with the efforts to rehabilitate it.
In fact it appears like successive ministers have no solution to the problem. At different times, committees and task forces have been set up to address the issue; there have been many interventionist inter agencies committees and access road task forces; all to no avail.
Some stakeholders have suggested the ridiculous, some the most unacceptable, yet some have proffered workable solutions.
Top among the issues that have come up is that the Lagos state government has been collecting the controversial wharf landing fees for a couple of years now.
Although, on paper, the law empowers local governments under whose jurisdiction the cargo passes through to their final destination, to collect varied amount on such goods, but in reality, it is not the local government(s) that collect. The state government actually collects the fees through a private firm.
One of the arguments that the Lagos state government advanced as its justification for the fee was that Lagos roads bear the brunt of shipping activities as articulated trucks freight containerized and bulk cargoes and liquid cargoes from the ports and jetties to the consignees’ destinations which (mostly) are outside the state.
If the state government had promised that proceeds from wharf landing fees will be used to provide more infrastructures in the city and especially in areas close to the ports, why is it that virtually all internal road networks in Apapa and of course, the Apapa Oshodi expressway are in a terrible shape. So what happens to the Billions of Naira that would have accrued from the fees since its introduction in 2009?
Even though no one is asking questions, the state government owes Lagosians the responsibility of letting us know how much has accrued as proceeds from Wharf Landing Fees so far and how the proceeds have been expended.
A portion of the revenue should be used to remedy the Apapa-Oshodi expressway in line with the state government’s promise, after all, majority of those who ply the Apapa –Oshodi expressway and Ikorodu Road/Western Avenue to Ijora on to Apapa are members of the shipping community who are stakeholders in the payment of Wharf Landing Fees.
It does not represent the Lagos state government as an accountable government when rather than allocate a percentage of the port generated funds to fix access roads to the ports, it is busy appealing to the Federal Government to repair the Apapa-Oshodi expressway.
As for the federal government, it must accept full responsibilities for the failed roads and the attendant traffic gridlock.
And as if it was ready to accept responsibilities for the failed expressway, the federal government has shown some interest. Repair has actually started, but it si slow and taking ages.
We recall that in February, 2013; the Minister of Works; Mr Mike Onolememen apparently playing to the gallery gave the contractor handling truck park at the Tin Can port axis (Messrs Boroni Prono Nigeria Ltd) a 16-week ultimatum to complete the trailer park meant to decongest the road.
About two weeks after the deadline was given, the contractor that is handling the main repair (Julius Berger) resurfaced at the site.
Since then, the story of Apapa/Oshodi expressway has remained the same; there is no clear indication that government is in a hurry to finish the repair.
Typical of government functionaries, the minister had shortly after his recent visit to the site, told reporters that, “the traffic gridlock on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, especially around the sea ports, is not only unacceptable, but also injurious to the nation’s economy.”
The question is what has been done since more than two years that the contract has been awarded, rather than release funds for an expedited repair; the federal government has been accused of starving the contractors of funds.
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