Govt gives tanker drivers 48 hours to decongest Apapa roads

Worried by the hellish conditions in which commuters and residents of Apapa and environs were being subjected to in the few weeks and buoyed by the need to stem the tide, Lagos State government yesterday gave drivers of tankers, trucks and articulated vehicles 48 hours to evacuate their vehicles on the roads. Affected by this ultimatum are tankers parked 300 meters away from the depots.   The state’ s Commissioner for Transportation, Comrade Kayode Opeifa, gave the ultimatum at the end of a stakeholders’ meeting held at Alausa to find solutions to the harrowing traffic situation within Apapa and environs.    The meeting, held at the Instance of the state Ministry of Transportation, was attended by the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), depot owners, police, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), and officials of Apapa local council.   Opeifa, who read the communiqué after the meeting, said the directives affected tanker drivers parked within 300 meters away from the depot. The tanker drivers, he said should also evacuate their vehicles in major streets in Apapa immediately so as not to attract the full force of the law.   The Commissioner, who noted that residents of Apapa have in the past week been deprived of access to their properties, forcing some of them to be living in hotels, said government is making the passionate appeal in view of the non-availability of petroleum product.   He said the law enforcement agencies have been mandated to start full enforcement of the law against indiscriminate parking of trucks on the roads and bridges from Sunday. Also speaking, the executive secretary of Apapa local council, Bolaji Dada, appealed to the Nigeria Navy to remove the roadblocks along the marine bridge in order to allow residents use the road at the interim.