Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, on July 6 called on tanker drivers to move at night rather than day time, to improve the traffic situation on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway. In the same breath, he assured that the traffic situation on the road would ease in the next one week. But the antecedents of that road may well prove him wrong as Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH, reports…
Last week, three journalists were robbed at gunpoint on the Apapa end of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway. They were on their way home from work and found themselves in traffic gridlock on the road that has become a gaping wound on the Lagos landscape about 11pm. If the road were not congested everyday, they would have been home long before the robbers found them.
That is the story of most of the people who travel that road daily. If the robbers do not strike, one stands a chance of having a shipping container toppling dangerously nearby or even a tanker full of petroleum running aground with its inflammable cargo.
The trio were somehow lucky; even as they lost a few valuables and cash, unlike some others who had been maimed on this road that has been a nightmare to residents, motorists, commuters and port users. In fact, some business people in the Apapa area have had no choice than to relocate their ventures from there.
So it was no surprise then that Fashola, after inspecting the situation on the road, resolved to find a solution to the perennial problem. Lagos State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat; Special Adviser on Works and Infrastructure, Ganiyu Johnson; and the South West Public Relations Officer of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Tayo Aboyeji; and a host of others accompanied Fashola.
The governor said the PTD officials had assured him that after one week, things would change for the better. He explained that it was easier for the state to accept PTD’s commitment and warned that if the change expected does not come, “we know what to do on behalf of the residents”. He emphasised that one business cannot disturb another, and that this was only a temporary measure, while he called on the federal government to also visit Apapa, to see the pains residents and owners of business are going through daily.
At press time, Commissioner for Transport, Kayode Opeifa, was said to be planning a visit to the road. Although the commissioner could not speak to TheNiche, Shina Thorpe who works with him said it was a very important matter to the government.
Discomfort from the road cannot be overemphasised, particularly when juxtaposed against the backdrop of the federal government awarding contract for the reconstruction of Section Two, Phase Two of the expressway to Messrs Julius Berger Plc. in August last year.
The contract worth N15 billion, the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, had explained, would be completed in 15 months. Almost 12 months after, there is no indication that commuters, motorists and residents will soon stop losing man-hours on the road.
The minister had also stated the obvious when he said that the road is the gateway to Apapa and Tincan Island ports and parts of Trans West African Coastal Highway. It is therefore of immense economic importance to the country and the West Africa sub-region; hence there has been a lot of interest from the state and federal governments.
But it is amazing that the road had been neglected to a point that it has virtually collapsed due to age and the fact that heavy vehicles carry goods to and from the ports day in day out.
Apart from commuters being exposed to men of the underworld, they have been forced to alight from the vehicles and trek to their destinations. Those travelling from the Apapa Wharf to Oshodi, particularly in the afternoon on working days, spend a lot of time on the road as TheNiche found out a day before Fashola’s inspection tour. A trip that should have taken 20 minutes lasted all of four hours. Some people have made that trip in recent time and were on the road till 2am.
Apart from the reasons already mentioned, some commuters say the contractor handling the job, traffic agencies like the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) compound the problem, particularly during rush hours.
For Jim Olisa, a commuter who travels the road daily, government is responsible for the gridlock because it has failed to call the tanker drivers, who daily block what is left of the road, to order.
The spokesman for Julius Berger, Clement Iloba, is reported to have said that the inconvenience being experienced by those who use the road cannot be avoided and that the work will be delivered on schedule.
Although Lagos Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko, was earlier said to have directed that security be beefed up on the road, the trio who were robbed could not find succour from any policemen when the robbers struck.
The CP’s directive, TheNiche gathered, was to increase the number of policemen on patrol on the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway and the Lagos-Badagry Expressway axis of Mile 2.
The gridlock led to the PTD’s decision to down tools, which it eventually put off due to intervention from the Lagos State government and the presidency.
South West Public Relations Officer of PTD, Tayo Aboyeji, had said that downing tools was the only way out of the gridlock. He said the tanker drivers had lost up to N1.5 billion to the despicable traffic situation in two weeks alone, including spending N2 million to mend some of the bad portions on the road, but doubted if things would change since they still have trouble parking within tank farms.
From all indications, the end to the gridlock may be nowhere in sight, but only time will tell.
