Seventy-two hours after the expiration of the presidential directive, the traffic situation on Apapa Ports road has not changed. The public is wondering what can be done about the problem, writes Adeyinka Aderibigbe
IT seems the Operation No Mercy declared by Hakeem Odumosu, a Commissioner of Police (CP) , and head of the enforcement of the Presidential Task Force on the clearing of Apapa ports roads of cripping traffic on Friday, is giving way to Operation Go Slow.
Go slow
Twenty-four hours after the expiration of the presidential order, the roads as well as bridges around Apapa were still blocked by trucks.
By Sunday afternoon, nothing seemed to have changed, though the head of the clearance team Comrade Kayode Opeifa declared the operation successful.
Opeifa told The Nation that the team recorded some success, and that before yesterday, the roads would have become passable and areas around the ports free of encumbrances.
He assured that within a fortnight that the committee would work within Lagos area, efforts would be made to sanitise the state.
Though truckers and other stakeholders had agreed to comply with the order, nothing as yet indicated compliance. The Apapa-Oshodi axis is still impassable, even as the Orile and Ajegunle axis are locked down.
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Wednesday, issued an order meant to sanitise the ports and remove all restriction to businesses.
However, when the Special Task Force set up by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo met with stakeholders 48 hours after, there was no indication that the order would be effectual.
The committee said it has 24 hours to clean up the roads and left all transport union leadership to work round achieving it. It threatened severe sanctions against defaulters.
“Any truck found on the road, bridges and the ports access areas at the expiration of the presidential order would be impounded and the drivers prosecuted,” Opeifa warned on Friday.
Opeifa, who represented Osinbajo (who was mandated by President Buhari to execute the order), said the Federal Government gave the trucks owners 24 hours to get out of the Apapa axis. He said the taskforce had two weeks to clean up Apapa and would thereafter leave the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and other stakeholders to continue with the implementation of template to free Apapa roads and ports from the worrisome traffic gridlock.
By Sunday, it appeared that the government had bent backwards to give room for more compliance. Many of the drivers were seen being guided by the police and LASTMA officials to available parking lots.
Staggering loss
In a television chat on Friday, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industries (LCCI) President, Mr Babatunde Ruwase, put a staggering figure to the nation’s economic loss.
According to him, LCCI’s recent study showed that Nigeria loses about N7 trillion yearly to the Apapa gridlock.
The figure, the nation’s losses from imports, exports, customs duties, other port charges, as well as the maintenance cost of the drivers, and the wear and tear of the trucks permanently trapped in the Apapa traffic.
For Ruwase, the government’s executive order on the ease of doing business will continue to suffer reversals until the traffic gridlock, especially in Lagos is tamed.
For Opeifa, enough is enough. He assured that the Buhari administration is determined to make Apapa work.
Opeifa who observed that the ports are stretched beyond capacity urged all investors to carry on their businesses without infringing on the right of others.
As part of the short-term measures, Opeifa, who reiterated the successes of the past interventions at Apapa, in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015 and shortly before the elections, said studies have shown that if enough commitment is deployed, the Apapa corridor can be cleaned up within 10 hours.
Attention, according to him, would be focused on truck traffic management and port area traffic management, with the government allowing the NPA to handle the latter.
An efficient and effective traffic management, he said, would address traffic management for the entire port area traffic, including cargo, fuel distribution and business district traffic that would incorporate integrated manual call up system, until the automatic call up system would be unveiled, as well as truck incident recovery and rescue plan.
This would be complemented with a 24-hour mobile police enforcement for security and back up enforcement.
Also unveiled are the deployment of revised empty container return management policy and the use of dedicated truck parks as temporary holding bays, for access to port via lillypond or directly to Tin Can via the Apapa-Oshodi access way.
Within the port area, the stakeholders also agreed to adherence to the NPA Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) on Port Truck Clearance, which incorporates temporary Manual Call-Up system.
For managing the truck parks, 54 private parks have been identified and approved by NPA and all trucks approaching the ports are to head for all NPA-approved private parking lots, for port access via Lillypond Terminal, which would serve as a marshalling yard. Trucks are to access the port only and exclusively through the NPA call up system on SOP, and Port Truck Clearance Procedure (PTCP).
Traffic Flow
The following were also adopted to manage traffic flow within the port: the removal of all stationary, immovable, accidented, incidented or wrongfully parked trucks are removed on all port access roads with effect from last Sunday, to a designated LASTMA impound yard. Penalty fines, fees and charges to be imposed before release would be applied the by Lagos State Laws after undertaken by the truck and consignment owner, Road Worthiness Certificate of Truck, a Driver’s Test Certificate from the state Drivers institute and Presidential consent.
Secondly, the enforcement team would ensure all stationary, sided, reefer, silos, Arewa, Dangote, BUA, Flour Mills of Nigeria Limited (FMNL), Honeywell, Fish and Flat bed trucks approaching the Port gate were to be given priority access based on their Port Terminal programme, capacity and common access traffic management system.
Thirdly, stakeholders agreed that all export container carrying trucks; such as those conveying perishable and reefer containers, are to proceed directly to the port for services and delivery.
If customs clearance is required, trucks are to approach NPA-designated Park for Customs clearance/release.
The elaborate strategies, according to Opeifa, would effectively mop up the traffic and reduce the lock down being experienced on the roads.
A logistics automation expert, Tunde Olaosun of Hermonfield Limited, described what was happening at Apapa as “organised chaos.” He said the gridlock is a man-made crisis that could be solved once appropriate traffic management strategies are deployed.
Olaosun, who had worked with APM Terminal and EML Terminal before going into private practice said only those with the inner workings of the ports can help solve the crisis, which he described as the fallouts of the ports concessionning policy of the federal government in 2006.
For him, the Apapa and the Tin can Island ports’ gridlock would continue and may grow worse, if the government refuses to deploy the right strategies or continue to listen to the wrong people.
Apart from adding to the cost of doing business, the gridlock has made the ports unattractive, and continued to ridicule Nigeria and Lagos which ordinarily ought to be the preferred hub not only for the West African sub-region, but also the African continent.
He said: “The ports at inception was designed as a multi-purpose port that was intended to be run by one operator, but ever since the concessioning, Apapa now play host to five terminal operators all of who are sharing one gate.
“Being a multi-purpose port, there are different types of truck needs or requirements. The truck requirement for a bulk terminal is different from a container or general cargo terminal. However, the need of every terminal varies, and based on the concession agreement, each of the terminals are supposed to submit to the NPA, 24 hours ahead, their truck requirements for proper traffic management.”
Olaosun and other experts blame the gridlock on issues, such as access control and insider round tripping as a result of activities in the port area.
Speaking on access control, stakeholders said four of the five operators at Apapa port share one access gate. There are the APM Terminal, EML Consortium, Green View, Apapa Bulk Terminal. While the last has its own access gate, the others use one.
They contended if the gridlock continued, it might pose threat to food security, because the movement in the port is diverse. “As you see import containers trying to gain access to the ports, so also are exports containers. Some trucks laden with exports have been stranded in the queue for over eight weeks. What margin would be left for a farmer trying to export his produce if he could not get to the port before his goods perishes. Most of the time, when these goods gets to destination they are rejected as a result of poor quality, they end up being sold on the high sea far below the cost price. Imagine if such farmer had borrowed from the banks? When they cannot pay, the banks go after them, get them jailed, thereby preventing them from farming. The problem would be compounded with poor import inflow, which may lead to food shortage and scarcity.”
The stakeholders, however, pointed at the lack of infrastructure at the ports. They called for the repair of all roads leading to the ports and opening of the rail access to the ports.
Olaosun believed that rather than build a truck park, which the Lagos State government is doing, efforts should be deployed into establishing a marshalling yard, from where trucks, through a call up system, could move in and out of the port with ease.
For him, a marshalling yard that controls movements in and out of the Apapa, would provide more funds for the government rather than providing a truck park.
