Nigeria has 853 kilometres of coastline running through seven of the southern states of the federation, namely Lagos, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River. Any of these seven states has the potential of having a sea port that could have been developed if we have had visionary planners.
When the British developed the port of Lagos after its bombardment in 1851, the idea of being the main port of Nigeria had not crystallized because the idea of a country called Nigeria had not dawned on the British or anybody for that matter. But by the time of amalgamation in 1914, the British realized that Apapa did not have the capacity to be the main port of Nigeria. In spite of several attempts to expand it, the water was too shallow and what later became Victoria Island was too rough for a port. The British then decided to build a port in the eastern part of Nigeria in the area of Diobu and named it Port Harcourt after the then British Secretary of State for the colonies, Sir Lewis Harcourt. But before the port became operational, the First World War broke out in Europe. Money became scarce and the development of the port suffered. After the war, money for reconstruction became a priority and development in all the British overseas territories fell into abeyance and before long, the Second World War broke out in 1939 and ended in 1945.
Britain itself needed funds from America like other parts of Europe from the Marshall Plan and what would have been a major port in the eastern part of the country was a victim of historical accidents. After independence, rather than build a port in Port Harcourt to complement Lagos, the federal government decided to build Tin-Can Island as an extension of Apapa with the same road approach but without railways which are the normal features of ports everywhere in the world for delivery of exports and evacuation of imports.
I do not know any port anywhere in the world where goods are evacuated by trucks and lorries. That is the history of the tragedy of Apapa. Perhaps a functioning railway to the port would have made the difference. But what we have are the thousands of articulated trucks snaking through the roads of Lagos and trying to enter and come out of the Apapa Port to the discomfort of road users, residents of Apapa and the drivers of these trucks who live and sleep rough on the streets for weeks. When they finally exit what is effectively their prisons, they drive like escaped prisoners sometimes killing fellow road users. The story of the chaos is made worse by the presence of oil storage tanks in Apapa necessitating oil tankers coming into the port to lift oil to various depots in the country.
In a normal country, the fuel being carried in fuel tankers would have been piped. But not in Nigeria. The pipes have been waylaid and broken into by petrol thieves who in spite of danger to themselves and the society continue their nefarious activities. If we were a sane country, our four refineries located in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna would have been producing optimally and we would not have had to be importing petroleum products and there would have been no oil storage tanks and fuel tankers to lift oil to different parts of the country. The roads of Lagos would not have been the killing fields they are today.
The result of this haphazard planning or no planning at all is incalculable. Lives have been ruined. Expensive properties have been damaged beyond repair. Vast areas of prime land have been polluted. A major quarter of Lagos has been ruined and made almost inhabitable. The economy of Nigeria has suffered and billions of revenue that could have been used to develop the country has been lost. The uneven development and concentration of all maritime activities in Lagos has led to massive migration of undesirable jobless people to Lagos thus swelling urban proletariat in Lagos and consequent increase in crime.
What I find most amazing or distressing is the fact that the federal government that rakes in trillions of Naira from the activities in the port finds it difficult to spend just a fraction of it to keep the goose that lays the golden eggs alive. It is simply short-sightedness. When the issue of Apapa is being discussed in parliament, people will be asking why money needed for the port is not shared out on federal character basis, forgetting that without revenues there will be nothing to share. It is gratifying to note that the federal government is taking palliative effort to once again solve what has become a malignant problem. I wrote about this crazy situation in Apapa about five years ago and nothing has changed and yet a layman like me can proffer straightforward solutions both short term and long term solutions.
First we must immediately close the port for a few weeks and ask competent companies to work day and night to fix the roads. When fixed, the roads must be continually maintained. The Nigerian Ports Authority must be made to allocate substantial amount of its revenues to the maintenance of the roads and ports facilities. On the alternative, the Apapa Port can be transferred to Lagos State to run and maintain and pay royalties to the federal government like New York in the USA. The long term solution is to immediately plan seven new ports in the aforementioned seven coastal states preferably in collaboration with foreign private interests. In this way, Lagos will be spared of the scourge of being overrun and overwhelmed by trucks and people from up country.
Hopefully when Dangote completes his refinery, the tank farms in Apapa will be rendered redundant and will have to be closed down. The new Lagos – Kano railways should also begin at the port so that trains and not trucks will evacuate imports.
One hopes we would have learnt a lesson from the tragedy of Apapa Port. The Lekki – Epe axis with the exclusive economic zone planned for the area, the new airport and ocean port and the Dangote refineries coming up there ought to call for serious thought about evacuation of goods from that axis so that we don’t repeat the Apapa tragedy a second time there. The time to make sure this does not happen is now!
A fourth bridge across the lagoon terminating in Ikorodu to link up with Ikorodu – Shagamu Road is of absolute necessity or in the alternative, the Lekki- Epe express can be continued to Ijebu Ode from where vehicles going to Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and the eastern states can then proceed. The possibility of linking the Lekki – Epe axis with the national railway should also be a priority if we are to avoid the present Oshodi- Apapa nightmare. Until our illiterate legislators realize that Lagos is the linchpin of the economic development of Nigeria, they will continue to treat Lagos as if it were just another state subjecting it all the time to debate about allocating revenue on federal character basis while cleverly forgetting that Lagos contributes 90 percent of excise duties and the various taxes on manufacturing and services in Nigeria. Service deserves its rewards must be additional principle to the much ballyhooed federal character principle when the case of Lagos is being considered.
