STAR FEAT Apapa: Nigeria’s port
Daily Trust reporters embarked on a torturous journey to Apapa, Nigeria's bustling commercial and port city in Lagos State, and reported how dilapidated infrastructure is making lives difficult for residents, workers and industrialists.
On June 17, 2017, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the federal government; AG Dangote Construction Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Dangote Group; and Flour Mills for the reconstruction of Apapa roads at the cost of N4.34 billion.
The beneficiaries of the project are eagerly waiting for it to commence and be done with, as many of them have been risking their lives by ferrying through the waters to reach their destination: the dockyard, behind the Flour Mills, Apapa.
Despite the risk, however, many will rather take the overloaded ferry, than to go to their destinations by road in Apapa.
For the federal government, Apapa has been a cash cow for decades, as it generates billions of naira in revenue annually from the ports. The Lagos State government also generates lots of money through taxes, land charges on buildings, etc.
However, Apapa has degenerated into one cash cow whose traffic complexion assails the sight. “Using the roads in the city these days has become a horror,” said Kola Ola, a senior member of staff of MidMaritime Services, a bonded terminal agency with offices at the Tin Can Island port, who must report for duty every day.
Accessing and exiting Apapa, from the Ijora end to the Tin Can Island-Coconut, and vice versa, will attract worse expletives from people who inevitably must visit the area daily - and there are thousands like Kola. From one end to the other, chaos is the word as hundreds of articulated vehicles and tankers, form long snarls of traffic disorder. A motorist would be lucky to do in four hours a journey from the Ijora end to the Tin Can Island port, which normally should not take more than 25 minutes.
Smiling at the rot is Saidu, a commercial motorcyclist (popularly called okada) from Kebbi State, who feasts daily on the patronage the traffic gridlock offers him.
When there was sanity on the road, the Mile 2 terminus was where tens of the commercial buses that ply the Tin CanApapa route litter the bus stop to pick passengers. But these days, it would be folly for any commercial driver to go through the Tin Can Island traffic jumble all the way to Apapa.
Our correspondent was compelled to patronise Saidu, the risk of the long journey amid trucks and tankers notwithstanding, and the inflated fare ignored. The motorcyclist was one of those that populated the bridge, waiting for passengers to secure their services for trips to Apapa.
As Saidu told his journalist customer, “oga, na our time to make money be dis o.” He was quite right.
About five minutes into the journey, Saidu told the reporter, “Oga, you go come down here make I go one way.” The referred point was a narrow diversion on the highway in front of the Julius Berger construction company. The diversion had apparently been created by the motorcyclists to enable them manoeuvre from one side of the expressway to the other to beat the heavy traffic, not minding the penalty.
The reporter held his breath as Saidu began to ride against traffic, snaking his way through the long disorder of trucks and tankers, most of which, the okadaman informed him, had been stationary in the hold-up for hours.
The rider's troubles and risks taking him to Apapa, the reporter thought, surely demanded the N500 fare he had charged him. The normal fare was actually N250 he learnt, but the horror that the Apapa traffic had become had necessitated the doubling of fare.
From the popular Coconut bus stop, which is a few metres to the Tin Can Island port, fuel trucks, which load petroleum products at the various tank farms adjoining the port, now daily form long queues on the expressway in a most unorganised manner, making it virtually impassable and forcing other road users to resort to 'one-way'.
Okada riders like Saidu are not the only culprits flouting the traffic rule, scores of commercial yellow buses, popularly known as danfo, also have a free reign on the section of the road meant to be plied by those heading out of the port area to Mile 2.
The respite the 'one-way' resort offered did not last long. At the Coconut bus stop, flood had taken over a vast portion of the six lanes, blocking easy passage in and out of a number of commercial banks operating at the axis. The flood compounded the traffic gridlock, as danfo drivers drove recklessly to avoid the bad portions of the road.
At the Ibafon junction, where the farm tanks are concentrated, the rowdiness is pronounced as drivers coming out of the inner roads of Olodi Apapa contest to link the expressway.
The journey through the Olodi Apapa community roads and inner streets to link the expressway, our reporter later learnt, is longer and tortuous for the danfo drivers, but the option has become the readily available alternative.
As Saidu approached the second and first gate bus stops of the Tin Can port, the anomie that has come to define Apapa became well resonated. The articulated vehicles that had already hijacked the two sections of the highway leading into Apapa had spilled to the two outward sections of the highway, leaving no clear route for private cars, buses and other road users.
The okada took the only available but riskier option. He launched his bike into the narrow route created by the two long rows of snail-moving trailers bearing dangling containers.
After many hours twisting and turning, Saidu found his way out of the gridlock and connected with the Liverpool under-bridge before linking with the popular Creek road that leads directly to the Apapa port.
But taking that direct road was out of the question as another logjam loomed. The rider made a detour to link the Warehouse road from where he finally linked with the Wharf road, which easily leads to the port.
The sickly complexion of traffic from the Apapa port outward to Ijora, and vice versa, completes the breakdown of order