By Ishaya Ibrahim
Apapa, Lagos, home of Nigeria’s major seaports is on a shutdown due to chronic traffic chaos which has so far collapsed 82 companies in the area, according to information from Apapa local council.
Council chairman, Owolabi Adele, said residents have abandoned their homes, businesses, and investments for trucks and tankers that have taken over every available space in the area, thereby worsening traffic situation.
Apapa Ports and Tin Can Island Ports are all located in Apapa, a Lagos metropolis that is the home of the only Nigeria’s functional seaports. But this very important area does not have garages for trucks, tankers and other articulated vehicles commonly seen at seaports.
A maritime consultant, Patrick Nwabunnia, told our correspondent over the phone that during the Abacha’s regime, the federal government through the Nigeria Ports Authority gave all the Ports’ garages to Dangote and other businessmen to build their factories.
Apart from Dangote Flour Mill which currently operates at the Ports, BUA Cement, Ibeto Cement, and its rice mill are some of the big players occupying several hectares of land within the ports premises, areas originally reserved for trucks and tankers.
Tank farms owned by Capital Oil, Total, MRS, Sahara oil are some of the fuel depots adding chaos to Apapa.
In 1997, the first tank farm was constructed in Apapa. Today, all the areas are filled with tank farms which attracts on daily basis, hundreds of tankers that make traffic situation chronic.
The Organised Private Sector (OPS), a body comprising the Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN) and other sister bodies, said their losses arising from Apapa traffic jam include; high cost of cargo transportation, loss of man-hour, inability of companies to meet set production targets, higher running cost and decline in revenue.
Nigeria is the second largest exporter in Africa after South Africa and the fourth leading importer in the region.
A estimated $650 billion annual volume of trade passes through Apapa Port and Tin Can Port.
Other Nigerian Ports; Onne in Rivers, Calabar in Cross River, and Warri in Delta, are not in use because importers avoided the Ports for their insecurity risk, posed by the Niger Delta militancy.
“Nobody will carry his goods and expose it to water that is not safe,” Nwabunnia said.
Maritime experts say it is an irony that Apapa and Tin Can, the biggest cash cow for government after crude oil sales, have no exclusive garages designated for trucks and tankers.
“How can you run seaport without truck garages? Seaports come with haulage and containers. Where do you expect these trucks to be parked?” Nwabunnia queried.
Private vehicles can’t get into Apapa because of the gridlock posed by trucks and tankers. The only transportation individuals could use to move around the area is motorcycle.
For trucks and tankers, they move in snail pace into Apapa, beginning from the National Stadium, a 10-kilometer stretch ride. But this short distance could take them six weeks.
“Imagine a situation where it is taking between five and eight weeks for our members to take delivery of their cargoes of vital raw materials.
“Trucks hired to carry cargoes belonging to our members cannot have easy access to the Port to lift or deliver cargoes and those lifting cargoes cannot come out of the Port because of the long hours of traffic,” MAN director general, Segun Ajayi-Kadir said.
In the mid-1990s, Nwabunnia recalled that there was no traffic congestion at Apapa.
“You drove freely into and outside Apapa. But today, Okada (motorcycle) is the only means of accessing your destination.
“Nigerians living in Apapa GRA have relocated. Businesses have relocated. If as a banker you are posted to Apapa, it is seen as punishment,” he said.
Nwabunnia said moving cargoes out of the Ports by rail, is the only solution. “If you fix all the roads as the government is pretending to be doing, where will the trucks park?
“The rail lines are there, go and activate them. Go to Shagamu and acquire land. Containers that are arriving, push them there. From there, their owners will take them to their final destination,” he said.
Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Usman had in August 2016, hinted that the government would look into the possibility of ferrying cargoes by rail transportation out of the Ports.
On February 9, 2018, almost two years after, the NPA boss repeated the same promise.
“(NPA) management would collaborate and improve on the existing synergy with the Nigeria Railway Corporation at addressing the challenges facing the Corporation with a view to increasing the market size of the country in the area of Cargo evacuation,” she said.
Apart from clearing the overgrown weeds on the existing rail tracks, TheNiche did not see any visible activity to suggest that the government was serious about the rail lines.
Nwabunnia said it is illogical for the government to hope that the 35-kilometer Apapa-Oworonshoki ten-lane express road which it handed over to Dangote Group to reconstruct in exchange for a ten-year tax holiday for his businesses, would take care of the gridlock.
“The only possible solution that can reduce the traffic jam by 50 per cent is to stop the importation of petroleum product. You would have been able to manage the problem by 50 per cent
“You can tell the oil majors to build refineries in different regions and it will be done.
“What will it cost them to put up light refineries in the Niger Delta?” he said.
The Apapa traffic gridlock has already paralysed businesses in the area, gradually extending to other adjoining neighbourhood like Festac, Mile Two, Ijora and Surulere.
“The government is not sensitive. By the time the circle is complete, Lagos will be shut down,” Nwabunnia warned.
Some analysts have said that clearing the congestion around Apapa would require demolition in the mode of what Nasir El-Rufai did when he was Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister.
Nwabunnia sees such a possibility as a solution to the Ports congestion, but doesn’t see the regular political class taking such a decision.
“Unless a ‘madman’ becomes Nigeria’s president and restores the original plan of the seaport which can only happen by demolition,” he said.
TheNiche finding has revealed that the Ports have been generating revenues big enough to provide the infrastructure that could have prevented this current chaos.
It was gathered that on every imports into the country, the government takes from an importer seven percent of his import duty charges for development levy.
“The money is being paid to the bank. It goes to the Central Bank of Nigeria. Such money can keep Apapa very clean,” Nwabunnia said.
But why has such money not made any impact at the Ports remain a mystery.
The NPA spokesman could not be reached for comment at press time.
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