By Yemie Adeoye, Godfrey Bibvere, Kunle Kalejaye& Nnenna Ezeah
HOWEVER, while responding to Vanguard’s enquiries over the telephone, the Chairman Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association, DAPPMA, Chief Sylvanus Okoli, said he was certain that the traffic congestion caused by tanker drivers was as a result of the unusual rush typical of the ‘Nigerian me-first’ approach and nothing out of the ordinary.

The traffic on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, Friday. Photo: Adekunle Aliyu.

He said that every tank farm owner in the country has been ordered by the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, to ensure the provision of a proper parking lot suitable for petrol tankers in order to ease the stress of traffic on the roads.

Okoli noted: “This, however, has been provided but due to the fact that the park is quite far from the depot we continue to experience the menace of tanker drivers on the roads. But I believe the DAPPMA members would get together urgently as you have brought it to my notice, so we can chart a way out of this chaos caused by tanker drivers.

“We have an emergency response already in place and this has brought some level of respite to the chaos around the Apapa depot. So we are going to activate this emergency response mechanism to nip this particular issue in the bud.”

Asked how his association intends to achieve this, Chief Okoli said the emergency response mechanism was not new as it was already in existence and only required re-activation.

He said: “We are going to call the operators at Ibafon oil depot together immediately so we can all put heads together, both DAPPMA and Elsee Shipping who are owners of the depot as well as the Nigerian Navy. The three bodies are essential to pave a way out of this problem. I am grateful for your information as I was not aware of this problem. I’m going to put a call to all parties involved immediately and the response mechanism would be initiated.”

Meanwhile, a tanker driver who gave his name as Musa said that he has been given permission to come and pick up fuel from one of the tank farms. All effort to get some of the oil marketers to comment on the situation yielded no meaningful result.

The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, is perceived by some observers as having worsened the situation by instructing tanker drivers to make use of the single lane provided for their use to allow for a free flow of traffic along the Tin-Can/Apapa express way, a situation which is being grossly abused by the drivers due to lack of regulation or supervision.

On what his association is doing about the disturbing development which has almost paralyzed businesses in the area, Chief Remi Ogungbemi, the Chairman of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners, AMATO, told Vanguard: “There is nothing we can do about it because we are not the problem.”

Ogungbemi explained that the traffic situation was the major challenge confronting his members’ operations noting that the traffic jam was as a result of the problem caused by the Federal Government during the concession of the ports. He explained that the original master plan of the port has been done away with.

According to him, the parking space in the ports before the concession has been turned into storage space for imported consignments. The AMATO boss said that these factors, coupled with the fact that shipping companies were not receiving empty containers has further compounded the problem because trucks have to park along the expressway for a day or two before they can discharge the containers.

As a way out of the problem, he said government must as a matter of urgency speed up the road development project and construction of a truck terminal for his members to stay until they are needed in the port.

Truck terminal

He added that they had an agreement with the Lagos State government for the construction of a truck terminal at Ijora but pointed out that they were still waiting on the state government for the conclusion of the arrangement, since they cannot move to the site without a concrete agreement to that effect.

He advised that there was need for the Federal Government to dedicate the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal phase one for the storage of empty containers while a dedicated road should be constructed from the expressway to the terminal for trucks, as a permanent and long term solution to the problem of traffic jam in the area.

He also called for the relocation of the Army Signal Barracks at Mile2 stressing that the location should be constructed as a holding bay for trucks, a space that can hold about 6,000 trucks.