Following the bad spots on the roads leading to the Apapa and Tin Can ports, maritime truck drivers and conductors have turned the access roads to their second home.
Some of the drivers who said that they had been on the queue trying to access the port for one week, were spotted sleeping under their trucks as they await the traffic to ease off.
As a result, the wharf road, and other major roads leading to the port are beginning to be littered with faeces and offensive odours of urine.
This is as a result of the drivers having to keep vigil on the roads pending when the traffic will afford them some movement.
The General Manager of Operations of the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Mr Philips Obadiah, said that the traffic had lasted and affected the businesses of their members.
Obadiah also said that some of their members trying to access the ports had been stuck at different locations even as he added that some truck drivers had been stuck on the road for more than one week.
He however said, “The problem (traffic) is affecting businesses and ypi knpq that truck business is about turnover, if you stop them for days with goods in the trucks, no movement, if you don’t deliver goods there is no payment.
“Maritime business in Nigeria is gradually dying and without transportation, you cannot do such business. Vehicles cannot load, they cannot ferry goods to the owners.”
On the palliative measures promised by the government, he said that such measure could not stand the test of time.
“If you put palliative measure here, for how long and considering the fact that we are in rainy season, any little gathering of water or pressure will affect it,” he interjected.
Also, Abdillaho Onuwa, the Managing Director of GeeGee Global Enterprises, owners of a fleet, decried government neglect of such an important road thereby making businesses to suffer.
Inuwa said that it now takes trucks a minimum of two days to cover a distance of about 300 metres.
“I wonder with what is going on now where drivers stay up to six days before they can access the port even those that have loaded, it takes them two days to cover 300 metres from the port to the road, that is, from wharf to railway dockyard,” he said.
While advising the government to prioritise the issue of the road, he said that the present situation could discourage business men from importing their goods for fear of losing them to falling trucks.
“Importers will not want to import their gppds now because they will be running at risk because of incessant falling of trucks due to bad roads.
“The government should prioritise maritime and do the roads with the sense of urgency as they did to the Abuja Airport that took only few weeks to fix,” the MD stated.
