The Lekki Free Trade Zone, envisioned as Nigeria’s foremost and modern industrial and logistics hub, stands on the precipice of greatness, depending on how the emerging traffic gridlock associated with its activities will be managed.
As the zone expands with the Dangote Refinery, Lekki Deep Seaport, and other high-capacity industrial concern coming fully on stream, signs of potential logistic chaos are beginning to show. The recent surge in the movement of articulated vehicles is a warning that should not be ignored.
We have seen this scenario before. Apapa, once a symbol of maritime pride, was reduced to a national embarrassment by years of traffic congestion, corruption, and inefficiency. Businesses collapsed. Residents were held hostage. Billions of naira were lost daily. It took years of agony and intervention, including the eventual introduction of an e-call-up system, to bring sanity to that corridor. Lagos cannot afford to relive that nightmare in Lekki.
This is why the time to act is now. The Lagos State Government must rise to its duty and ensure that a full, functional, and incorruptible e-call-up system is deployed and enforced, across the Lekki-Epe corridor. Not next month. Not next year. But now — before the looming chaos sets in.
All stakeholders — from the state government, to the Nigerian Ports Authority, the Lekki Deep Seaport management, Dangote Refinery, and other industrial giants — must come together with a unified purpose, to prevent Lekki from descending into an Apapa-style traffic disaster.
Truck and tanker drivers, logistics operators, and port terminal users must not be allowed to operate in the old disorderly manner. The e-call-up system, properly designed and implemented, is not just a traffic management tool; it is a lifeline for the zone’s future. It enables scheduling, reduces wait times, combats extortion, enhances safety, and ensures smoother flow of goods and services.
But implementation alone is not enough — compliance and enforcement must be strict, technology must be topnotch, and all users must be sensitized and on-boarded. Petroleum product facilites bonded terminals, and manufacturing plants operating in the zone must integrate fully into the platform. Delays and excuses are no longer acceptable.
Lekki is the future of Nigeria’s economic diversification, and we cannot allow that future to be buried under the weight of container trucks and fuel tankers queuing endlessly on the road. The government must act, and the private sector must cooperate. The cost of inaction will be far greater than the cost of getting it right from the start.
The Lagos state government must galvanise all stakeholders and ensure that the tech company that has won the bid to operate the electronic call up system gets to work immediately.
Lagos has a second chance to avoid repeating the Apapa tragedy. Let us not waste it. We have a choice: Order or chaos. Vision or negligence. Progress or paralysis.
Lagos must choose wisely. It must choose now.
