Apapa is home to Nigeria’s two foremost ports that are divided into and are being managed by nine terminal operators. Between these two ports, 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 35 tank farms. These are in addition to the numerous other businesses that are located in this port city.
Apapa is home to Nigeria’s two foremost ports that are divided into and are being managed by nine terminal operators. Between these two ports, 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 35 tank farms. These are in addition to the numerous other businesses that are located in this port city.
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.
For the ports, there are scores of articulated trucks which on daily basis freight containers and assorted bulk cargoes to different parts of the country. For the tank farms, there are tankers which also load petroleum products from the different depots to different parts of the country.
Apapa is linked to the rest of the city by two roads; 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).
Going by the operational realities highlighted above, there must be heavy vehicular traffic around Apapa and indeed all port locations. There must be movement of heavy-duty vehicles and including trucks.
The debilitating vehicular traffic which reared its head about eight years ago and which has since become a regular feature of the ports, has lately assumed a frightening dimension so much so that, except for those who work in Apapa, Lagosians now dread transiting through the city or going there for business or any other endeavours.
Former ministers of transportation (especially, Chief Cornelius Adebayo and Mrs. Deizani Allison Madueke) had, at different times attempted to solve the problem of excruciating traffic situation in Apapa, but it is apparent that their efforts did not yield any appreciable result.Both Adebayo and Madueke did not achieve much because their efforts were targeted at the vehicle-induced traffic problems that were prevalent at that time. While Adebayo caused investigations into the causes of traffic, his successor focused on harassment of owners of tank farms. Their efforts actually created some sanity, especially on the two approaches to Apapa.
Chief Adebayo’s intervention led to the setting up of a committee which eventually identified indiscriminate parking of vehicles, indiscriminate construction of tank farms along the expressway and close to the ports as well as use of rickety trucks which often break down thereby causing obstruction as some of the causes of the debilitating traffic situation in Apapa and environs.
It was the committee’s recommendation that gave rise to the creation of the inter agency task force code named: Lagos Ports Access Roads Monitoring Unit, which to some extent was able to tackle the problems of indiscriminate parking of vehicles along the Apapa end of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway and the Apapa end of the Apapa-Ijora highway.
Similarly, Mrs. Allison Madueke took the battle to free the access roads to the door step of owners of tank farms whom she ordered to create holding bays for trucks coming into their facilities to load petroleum products.
But the current terrible traffic being experienced daily in Apapa, is not only caused by indiscriminate parking of petroleum product tankers and container-laden trucks; it is also caused by the collapse of the Apapa- Oshodi expressway.
We think that the failure of Apapa – Oshodi expressway is a re-confirmation of what we all have come to know as the failure of the government to maintain infrastructures.
One remembers the justification that the Lagos state government raised when it introduced collection of ‘wharf landing fees’.
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.
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.
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. Prior to the emergence of tank farms in Apapa, traffic wasn’t as bad. An attestation to this fact is that two former ministers, that is, Adebayo and Madueke had identified the operations of tank farms as being the main cause of the prevailing traffic congestion in and around Apapa.
Another salient reason for increased activities in Apapa is the federal government’s port concession programme which has led to soaring ship traffic and attendant higher cargo throughput and consequently, influx of more articulated trucks into the ports.
As it is, both the Lagos state government and the federal government must sit together to find a workable solution to the daily nightmare on the roads in Apapa. This must be done in conjunction with all stakeholders in the Apapa business.
We see the creation of another body called ‘Federal Roads Committee on Surveillance and Action Against Road Abuse (FERCSARA)’ as another exercise in futility.
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