Road users of Lagos ports access roads and Apapa-Oshodi expressway may soon witness the end of the perennial traffic gridlock on the road. The nightmare that had been the Apapa roads had defied solution for over fifteen years, taking incalculable toll in lives and property. Federal and Lagos State governments’ efforts to tame the monster had always proved dead on arrival as a result of the unholy alliance between truckers and security agents posted to maintain sanity on the road. But there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel.
The hope is coming from the truckers themselves who are widely regarded as the major culprits in the intractable battle against the Apapa traffic phenomenon. Basking in the euphoria of the opening to traffic of the reconstructed Wharf Road, the truckers said they had resolved to do everything to ensure that all the road users enjoy the benefits of the reconstructed road. Not only that, they will also work for the total elimination of the perennial traffic gridlock on the other access roads to the ports.
The two truckers associations operating in the Lagos ports, the Containerized Truck Owners Association of Nigeria (COTOAN) and the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) said maximizing the benefits of the new road will help their members recover from the devastation the gridlock had wreaked on their businesses over the years. The resolve will also help to check driver fatigue and the threat to lives and health of other road users especially the Apapa community and its environs that had borne the brunt of the protracted traffic debacle.
The two associations, in a joint statement after a meeting of their leaders a fortnight ago in Apapa, Lagos, pointed the finger to the lack of automation system to regulate or control truck movements to and from the ports, the large sums of money that exchange hands between truckers and security agents or their collectors at various points along the port access roads, and the absence of public truck terminals, as the major cause of the intractable gridlock. Said the statement:
“In view of the serious challenges that are militating against the stability and survival of our business as containerized truck operators in ports, we have, therefore, carefully studied and identified the root causes of the challenges, which are as follows:
a. Lack of automation system to regulate/control movement of trucks that are going into the ports either to pick imported cargoes, or taking exports into the ports or returning empty containers into the ports, which informed the reason why almost all the trucks thronged along access roads into the ports at the same time;
b. The condemnable whopping sums of money that are exchanging hands days and nights between truckers as bribe givers on the one hand and security operatives or their collecting agents as the receivers of the bribes at various points along the access roads into the ports, either through voluntary offers of these bribes by the truckers in order to gain undeserved advantageous positions on the truck queues lining the roads and bridges, or the bribes the trucks offer the security operatives or their agents under either duress as a result of intimidation through verbal or/and physical abuses; and
c. Absence of modern and befitting public terminals, which has seen a large number of truckers without garages parking on the roads and bridges.”
The statement signed by the leaders of the two associations, Chief Remi Ogungbemi and Alhaji Wasiu Oloruntoyin for AMATO and COTOAN respectively, expressed belief that every problem has a solution or expiry date and therefore resolved to work with the relevant authorities “to achieve peaceful and enabling working environment.”
It noted that the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), as the technical regulator of the ports, had informed operators that it has approved the manual call-up of trucks as not just a condition for trucks to access the ports, but also as a method to regulate/control movement of trucks into the ports.
“We have, therefore, resolved to imbibe and test-run the system,” said the leaders, who appealed to their members to give the call-up system a trial and take their trucks off the roads until they receive call-ups. “Let’s endeavour to submit all required information/documents to facilitate issuance of the call-up,” they admonished.
Blaming themselves for initiating the bribery and extortion on the road, the leaders advised truckers to stop the practice which induces security agents to look the other way while trucks make illegal turns and run against oncoming traffic. They further advised trade haulage unions and associations to stop collecting dues from members on the road, urging them to “fashion a better, modern and acceptable way of funding themselves by doing away with primitive and archaic ways that are not just breeding hooliganism and thuggery, but also denting the image of our country”.