Why traffic gridlock persists at Wharf-Apapa road
The incessant traffic gridlock experiencing by business owners and residents as well as road users at Apapa has become worrisome on daily basis despite the recent Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Federal Government, AG Dangote, Flour Mills and Nigerian Ports Authority to end the menace.
Daily Dispatch Newspaper recalls that the problem is as a result of bad roads due to years of neglect while ninety percent of petroleum products are stored in various private tank farms in Apapa hitherto causing heavy traffic jam on the road. Also, trucks carrying
containers and tankers occupied a complete lane or sometimes both lanes on the bridge that leads to Apapa while waiting for their turn to load inside the port or the tank farms.
Similarly, the delay of access into the port due to slow clearance processes has hindered greatly free movement of traffic into the port resulting to truck drivers spending days on the road leading to the port and these tank farms.
Moreover, the contribution of Apapa and its environs to the economy of the country is no fewer than twenty billion naira (N20bn) generated daily because of the country two vital and most utilized seaports, the Tin Can Island Port (TCIP) and Apapa Port are strategically situated in this place hereby accounting for about eighty percent (80%) of the country import and export activities.
However, the palliative works done by AG Dangote to ensure free flow of traffic at Apapa-Wharf road at present has also been hampered by non-availability of the holding bay for tankers and trailers who are bent on parking their vehicles on the road until it’s their turn to load at the port and tank farms situated in Apapa and its environs.
In an interview with container and tanker drivers, business owners and residents at Apapa, it was gathered that since it has been announced that construction works on the road would commence soon and lasted a year, it would be better to relocate the container and tankers drivers whose activities have caused untold hardship on the society and businesses in the area.
According to Mr. Oluwaseun Adegbile, a resident in the area, he noted that it has become difficult for him and his family to move in and out of their GRA quarters when necessary due to unprecedented traffic logjam on daily basis. “I am appealing to the government to provide holding bay for tankers who were in the habit of parking their
vehicles on the road”
In the same vein, the trio of Waheed Olaosebikan, Mohammed Abdulrahman and Christopher Ekpo all tanker drivers expressed readiness to move their vehicles away from the road only if government could provide holding bay for them, they claimed that many of them do not reside in Lagos but from another states only to load petroleum products and leave.
In a related development, Alhaji Abdullah Alabede, a clearing agent at Apapa port whose container was stuck in the traffic said “The process of clearance into the port by port operators needs to be reviewed to enable speedy access to the port. It is of utmost importance to get the holding bay for tankers and trailers this will get them off the road until when it will be their turn to load at the port and tank farms rather than creating problem as you can see now.”
