President Muhammadu Buhari directly intervened in the four-year long traffic nightmare on the roads leading to Apapa and Tincan Island Ports in Lagos. His order to a commiteee headed by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo was pungent enough. ‘Clear the lockjam on the approach to the Ports and fix the Oshodi-Apapa road’. Buhari gave the order on May 28 to make work to resume on the long abandoned road. After all these years of anguish and outcry by residents and commuters along the road, the presidential reprieve has proved to be a welcome development. Finally, the road would be decongested of articulated vehicles while the bad portions are being fixed.
Less than 24 hours after the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was sworn in on May 29, he embarked on an on-the-spot assessment of the road. It was a huge sigh of relief for the commuters and residents along the 19-kilometer road as they poured out in their numbers to witness the governor’s tour, upon which he stated that an enduring solution would be found in six weeks. A couple of days after his visit, the articulated vehicles had disappeared and the road had become accessible again, safe for the pot holes that have now virtually metamorphosed to craters. At the moment, large portions of the roads have been shut to traffic to enable the engineers accelerate work on some palliative measures that the Government has directed must be done quickly.
Environmentally, the “pull” of the Apapa end of the road, where the sea port is located, is too alluring to ignore. A first time visitor to the activity-laden Apapa Port while the seemingly endless logjam lasted could wonder if the route was a jungle of sorts. Heavy duty vehicles jostled with smaller ones like in a competition for the tiny smooth part of the road; it was always a sight that could get the most patient person very angry. Sometimes commuters felt disappointed that they had not accomplished their mission for the day as they got stuck for hours. Some young boys as well as older men and women had thoroughly exploited the rather pathetic situation with the aim to make brisk business profits while wishing that government turned a blind eye on the road, even as they continued to milk stranded commuters, with the vital importance of the road to the Nigerian economy totally lost. Interestingly, the government had over the years awarded contracts to give the port a facelift. But it should be of profound irony that the same government took too long to pay meaningful attention to the dilapidated road leading to the port.
To be fair, the Lagos State Government made some vital interventions to ease the pain experienced by commuters on the Apapa route in recent years, particularly during the time that Babatunde Raji Fashola was governor between 2007 and 2015. It initiated a public/private effort which saw it establish some form of partnership with companies along the route to collaborate with the state government in effecting repairs where needed. But this had taken too long to materialize, considering the busy status of the road and the difficulty of building diversions around the area, resulting from its waterlogged terrain. The state had earlier tried in vain to enforce road worthiness of the heavy vehicles while announcing measures that would make the vehicles to ply the road on specific days and time of the week.
The Federal Government’s policy to centralize the port operations in Nigeria, which rendered the Warri, Port Harcourt and Calabar ports inactive, also contributed to the logjam on the route with heavy vehicles literally invading Lagos from all parts of the country. However, the presidential order has a twin effect of shoring up revenue and easing the pain of commuters. It remains to be seen if the state of Oshodi-Apapa road would be better by the time Governor Sanwo-Olu’s six-week promise to effect vital repairs of the road elapses in mid-July.
Now, how about another presidential order to compel work on the dilapidated Lagos-Badagry express road that has constituted a huge embarrassment to Nigeria – being the vital link to other west African countries? Well, Sanwo-Olu has said that the contractors handling the road project will return to site by the end of this month. Teeming millions of Lagosians who ply the route as well as West African travelers are anxiously waiting for this promised relief on the highway.
*Afolabi Gambari, Journalist, Environmentalist, Social Commentator writes from Lagos, Nigeria Tel: +2348064651922, +2348116706849
