The Professor Sylvester Monye-led Presidential committee on port reform started out with a larger- than-life profile; flaunting the credentials of being very close to the presidency. Of course, it should be close, it’s led by a man who is already working with President Goodluck Jonathan as his special adviser on project monitoring and evaluation and it also has another special adviser (on maritime ) in the person of Mr Leke Oyewole as a member.
The Professor Sylvester Monye-led Presidential committee on port reform started out with a larger- than-life profile; flaunting the credentials of being very close to the presidency. Of course, it should be close, it’s led by a man who is already working with President Goodluck Jonathan as his special adviser on project monitoring and evaluation and it also has another special adviser (on maritime ) in the person of Mr Leke Oyewole as a member.
Apart from these, the committee also parades a list of credible stakeholders, which presupposes that it has all it takes to make a difference.
While one is not interested at this point in what it has or hasn’t achieved in its main task of ensuring that the port system fairs better, a look at its handling of the debilitating traffic on the ever-busy Apapa –Oshodi expressway says a lot about the committee.
In March, the ‘star-studded’ committee did the most unthinkable, it over estimated its powers. It gave truck drivers and tanker drivers only 48 hours to quit the Apapa –Oshodi expressway.
It was no less a person than the committees chairman, Professor Sylvester Monye who assured that thenceforth, no articulated trucks would be allowed on the expressway.
Surprisingly however, the order was obeyed in the breach; not only did the leadership of the truck drivers and owners ignored it, but the situation never abated, in fact, the traffic situation became worse.
Not until the Governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Raji Fashola undertook a fact-finding visit to the two axis that Lagosians became hopeful that the almost 10-year old gridlock would become a thing of the past.
Coincidentally, Fashola took advantage of the visit of the presidential committee to declare that enough was enough for owners and drivers of these articulated trucks. He told the committee about government’s plans to free the Apapa expressway of the menace of drivers of articulated vehicles who have continued to block the expressway.
Surprisingly, the Professor Monye committee is already rushing to take credit for the sanity that has returned to Apapa –Oshodi expressway, but this is an unmerited glory.
It is clear to all that what the committee could not achieve almost two months after it gave the laughable order is what the Lagos state government has achieved by dint of determination and purpose.
The failure of the presidential committee is also a pointer to the fact that the it is already going the way of previous committees before it.
Every stakeholder in the Nigerian port system knows that the committee has met made so much noise, given so much promises and offered so many solutions to the problems that it is no longer been taken seriously.
Months into its assignment, cargo clearance is still as cumbersome as it was, while the promise to put machineries in place to achieve the much-desired 48-hour cargo clearance deadline remains a mirage.
Discussion about this post