On Thursday May 5, the Mile Two/Berger axis of the Oshodi-Apapa expressway was nearly turned into a battle ground when officials of the Lagos State Government descended on defiant tanker drivers who have been making life unbearable for road users on this part of the busy expressway.

Some of the tankers parked by the road side

Officials of the Lagos State Transport Management Authority, LASTMA, had swooped on the tanker drivers for failing to observe a pact signed by their leaders for them to vacate the road on or by May 3.

That enforcement intervention later succeeded in getting the defiant drivers and their tankers off the road. With this development, many motorists had thought that the era of indiscriminate parking of tankers on the expressway and the nightmare associated with it was over. The envisaged relief was heightened when these road users observed that the usual gridlock on the road had miraculously disapeared, especially last weekend.

However, that relief was to be short lived as the traffic jam in the area is back in full force. And this has been traced to the return of the tankers to the road, with their defiant drivers claiming that they were there on a legitimate business of lifting petroleum products.

Their return obviously caught LASTMA officials unawares. This is in spite of the fact that they had been on monitoring activities on this road with the aim of ensuring compliance to traffic rules and terms of the agreement signed by National Union of Petroleum and Natural gas, NUPENG and Petroleum Tanker Drivers Association, PTD which has been in force since Thursday May 5.

As usual, the tanker drivers had taken over the service lane of the Mile Two/Berger axis of the road, parking indiscriminately from Tincan/Coconut to Berger Yard.

Some commuters who reacted to the development argued that government should have provided an alternative parking space for the drivers or decentralize the fuel supply depots in the area so that tanker drivers will not have to converge on that part of the expressway on daily basis.

They also called on the Federal Government to repair existing depots to enable the drivers lift petroleum products from other places.

Before the intervention of the Lagos State government through LASTMA, it was always a harrowing time for commuters and motorists plying the expressway, especially the Mile Two/Berger axis that was practically converted into parking lots for tankers and other haulage vehicles.