By Babatola Oke
As a long-standing player in Nigeria’s maritime space I have watched the traffic gridlock along the Apapa axis progressively deteriorate and grow into a colossal national embarrassment over the years.
Since I started conducting business in the Apapa Area in 1998, access roads into that part of Lagos have never been anything that reflect the revenue that the country reaps from the natural endowments that the heavens has blessed Nigeria with in the two ports as well as the multi- billion-naira investments in the area.
I have thought about this year on end and it has continued to appear to me that successive governments have been at a loss as to what to do about this situation that has not only brought monumental losses to the national economy and doing damage to the environment but is resulting serious human hardship. Even as it continued to get worse and has finally reached a shameful head lately.
How does a country, which prides itself as the foremost on the Africa continent, allow its premium port facilities to become such an eyesore? That is not to say that no effort has been made to reverse the situation at all, but these have been largely tentative palliative measures that provide no sustainable solutions. The roads have always come out worse than they were before these series of initiatives and life around the area, expectedly more tortuous.
Not even hopes that the swearing in of President Muhammadu Buhari would improve things have materialized and I like many others that I know have given up on prospects that government would get its acts together as it concerns improving the hellish congestions that exist in Apapa.
This is even more so when you read stories about the government bodies throwing blames about who should do what to terminate this disgraceful situation that faces Nigeria. One has had for instance the Nigerian Ports Authority and the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing bicker over whether it is the roads or the volume of cargo coming into the ports for which they do not have holding capacity that is responsible for the congestions. So you wonder how, for goodness sake agencies of the same government, responsible for the welfare of the citizens are unable to sit together to solve this problem permanently. I have been particularly peeved at the NPA for the seeming failure to take the initiative and save Nigeria the shame that Apapa has become. This is more so when the completion of rehabilitation of the Wharf Road, which the NPA commendably spearheaded in collaboration with Messrs AG Dangote and Flour Mills of Nigeria did not contribute anything significant to the actual decongestion of Apapa. Even though it had coughed out a whopping N1.8b in this collaboration, the fact that this congestion persisted made stakeholders in Apapa expect that the NPA would at that time put up an aggressive plan that attend to holding trucks that have become a nuisance on the expressway and turn the country into a banana republic.
But it seems the NPA is currently doing its best to find a solution to the situation that we have at hand in Apapa and that is heart-warming. The recent news about conversion of the Lilypond Container Terminal into a truck park gave a deep sense of relief that the NPA is set to deal with this issue terminally. And that is a thing of joy. If NPA is deliberate at improving the call-up system for truck gaining access into the ports for cargo evacuation and removal as what it introduced in 2018 as feelers in Apapa indicate, then we would be on the path to permanently resolving the perennial congestion in Apapa. The call up system, which is said to have been delayed due to the need to protect the shorelines at the Tin Can Island Port will take trucks off the road and free up more space to enhance free flow of traffic along the Apapa port access road.
And just before the end of last week, news filtered in the NPA had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a company, A.P Moller capital on how to exploit the waterways for the movement of Cargo. This is truly not a new initiative given that the NPA has sometime last year spoken about its licensing companies to evacuate containers to the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal, this current arrangement is reportedly considering extending the use of barges to evacuate containers from the ports beyond Ikorodu to Epe. Public/private partnerships like this one is what one is expects of liberalized entities like the NPA.
One assumes however that the NPA realises that the combination of Lilypond and the new initiative with A.P will not sufficiently take care of this congestion challenge. There are many private parks on that road and the NPA should not relent in the effort it made last year made to license of private park operators.
Arguments about the congestion in Lagos being attributable to the inactivity in other ports in the country is largely debatable because the port business is usually determined by the most convenient location for port users as such, rather than suggesting that more traffic in Onne, Warri and Calabar would have direct effect on traffic congestion in Lagos, Nigeria should work to make the ports in Lagos competitive. Even then however, one has heard about efforts that are being made to improve service delivery at these ports. Was a contract for the dredging of the channel into the Warri Ports not awarded last year for instance?
Given what the positive steps the NPA has taken so far, I advise that it should pursue the recently signed contract between the Federal Government and Dangote AG for the construction of the Apapa Oshodi Express way. Creating the enabling environment for greater private sector involvement, taking greater advantage of the inland waterways and rail network in the evacuation of cargo to and from the ports.
I am persuaded that as we optimize multi modal means of transportation of goods and cargo from the port, we would minimize vehicular traffic, and the Apapa gridlock will become a thing of the past.
Oke, a licensed freight forwarder, wrote in from Lagos
