Gridlock on Mile Two-Apapa Road as tanker drivers defy quit order

THE chaotic traffic situation within and outside Apapa metropolis continued yesterday despite efforts by a combined team of the Nigerian Navy (NN), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Civil Defence, among others, to bring the situation under control through regulation of vehicle movement, especially petroleum tankers.

Meanwhile, depot owners are to meet next week Wednesday with representative of all stakeholders to map out strategies on how to find permanent solution to the menace.

The traffic personnel in collaboration with Petroleum Tanker Drivers Association (PTDA) had last week streamlined the movement of petroleum tankers and introduced what they identified as “call-up” system.

The call-up system allows only specified numbers of petroleum tankers into the tank farms while others are prevailed upon to wait at a specified distance, a development, which led to improvement in the traffic situation between Monday and Wednesday last week.

But when The Guardian drove through the Mile Two, Coconut axis of the road using a hired commercial motorcycle yesterday, the entire stretch was blocked and became chaotic forcing some commuters to trek long distances.

The situation was however different from the Western Avenue-Ijora bridge axis of the metropolis where there was improvement in vehicle movements in the early hours of yesterday. As at the time of filling in this report, the traffic situation around Ijora Bridge was fair compared to the gridlock along the Mile Two axis. Speaking on the development in a chat with The Guardian yesterday, the FRSC Unit Commander in charge of Wharf, Olalekan Morakinyo, blamed tank farms for the ongoing gridlock in the area.

He said: “The petroleum tanker drivers should have behavioural changes. The spill-over from the tank farms is what is responsible for the traffic along the expressway.”

He also advised the depot owners to create a truck bay within the premises to cater for trucks waiting to lift petroleum product. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) General Manager in charge of Western Port, Chief Michael Ajayi, in a chat with The Guardian yesterday, said the managing director of the authority is doing everything possible to improve the road situation in the area.

The Managing Director of NPA, Sanusi Lamido Ado Bayero, has charged the contractors handling the rehabilitation work at the Tin Can Island access road to expedite action to ease traffic in and out of the port.

He said NPA was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Works through the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to make the entire road network within the Tin Can Island/Apapa axis motorable, adding that NPA, as a responsible and responsive organisation, “would not fold its arms while the citizens of Nigeria pave through the hurricane in an effort to eke out a living through the ports in Apapa.”

In a related development, stakeholders in the maritime sector, including terminal operators, had recently challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to develop the political will to relocate all tank farms within Apapa axis to a more convenient location, saying the existence of tank farms, bad road network, ‘untrained petroleum tanker drivers’ among others, are factors responsible for the gridlock.

Managing Director of a prominent firm located within Apapa axis, who preferred to remain anonymous in a chat with The Guardian yesterday, blamed the existence of tank farms in the area for the ongoing gridlock.

He said: “The only way forward is to relocate the tank farms. The tank farms must be relocated. Apart from the traffic challenges, what do you think will happen if there is an explosion within the vicinity of the tank farms? Over 10,000 innocent people may be consumed.”

The Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Mrs. Vicky Haastrup, described the gridlock being experienced in Apapa as a direct consequence of alleged system failure in the oil and gas industry logistics chain.

Haastrup, who is also the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of ENL Consortium – operators of Terminals C and D of the Lagos Port Complex, Apapa – said the only way to solve the gridlock is to immediately suspend the lifting of imported petroleum products from tank farms by road. She said: “There is an over-concentration of oil tank farms in Apapa, an area predominantly designed for port operations.

There is now a situation where we have proliferation of oil tank farms without regards for the safety logistics implication. “I issued a warning over five years ago advising government to discontinue tank farm operations in Apapa but nothing was done.

The problem is now staring all of us in the face. “Port operations have been brought to a virtual standstill as a result of this chaos created by tank farms and oil tankers and it does not look like anyone is doing anything drastic about it.

“We have a situation where over 10,000 tankers descend on Apapa daily and when you add this to the number of conventional trucks on routine maritime operations, it is not surprising that we have the kind of gridlock we are currently witnessing.”