By Jude Njoku, Bose Adelaja & Kingsley Adegboye
MOTORISTS and commuters plying the Lagos – Badagry and Oshodi/Apapa expressways, have on several occasions, been subjected to untold hardship occasioned by perennial traffic gridlock that has become a recurring decimal along the ever-busy road.

Only recently, users of the road literally went through hell as a result of the traffic snarl caused by the illegal parking of  tankers waiting to load petroleum products at the tank farms in the area.

There is no disputing the fact that the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway is one road that is very strategic as a major gateway to the country’s sea ports. The major share of government’s revenues come from both the Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports.

The gridlock on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway...caused by indiscriminate parking of fuel tankers and containers

The expressway is noted for endless traffic jams that keep motorists for hours as they try to navigate through the tankers and trailers mindlessly parked on the expressway by their drivers.

It took a sustained media outcry to draw the attention of both the Federal and Lagos State Governments to the numerous craters on the expressway. The craters and blocked drains rendered the expressway impassable after rainfall, no matter how slight the downpour. The pressure appeared to have yielded positive results when last year, the Federal Government awarded the contract for reconstruction of the expressway to construction giant, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc.

The traffic which stretched several kilometres was so chaotic at Mile 2 and Julius Berger yard that officials of Lagos State Transport Management Authority, LASTMA, who came to restore sanity, found they could not do much. The hue and cry that greeted the nightmare experienced by motorists and even pedestrians, forced the State government to issue a 72 hour-ultimatum to the tanker drivers to remove their trucks from the road median or have them towed.

Indiscriminate parking of fuel tankers

At the expiration of the ultimatum, the state government, embarked on a forceful removal of all fuel tankers parked indiscriminately on the Oshodi Apapa expressway. At the end of the exercise, no fewer than 120 tankers seized by the monitoring team. Although the action of the state government has offered temporary relief to road users especially residents of Apapa, Festac and Badagry, many of those who spoke to Vanguard had their reservations.

According to them, this is not the first time tanker drivers have been sacked from the road only to return in a matter of days. And as they predicted, the tankers have returned, causing another round of traffic snarl along the ever-busy expressway.

Govt provided only one loading bay

Vanguard investigations revealed that only one loading bay which is situated at Sari Iganmu (Orile) is provided by the Lagos State government. The loading bay which was named Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Tankers Terminal has a capacity of between 500 and 2000 trucks. But part of the terminal was taken over by the expansion of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway into 10 lanes.

The Secretary, Lagos Zonal Council of Petroleum Tanker Drivers, Comrade Adebayo Atanda, told Vanguard that his men are conscious of the situation and will try its best to restore sanity on the expressway. He also enumerated some of the challenges being faced by the tanker drivers in the cause of doing their business.

Challenges facing tanker drivers

Atanda said: “Our challenges are numerous; lifting of the product is a problem as tankers have to travel to Lagos from all parts of the country to lift the product. This is a big challenge because it is strenuous. Another challenge has to do with bad roads and constant shortages of the product.

Everybody knows that Nigerian roads are bad, especially the roads classified as Federal roads. They are all in deplorable conditions. The one that is closer to us in Lagos which our tankers ply mostly is the Lagos-Ibadan expressway which leads to almost every part of the country. We know how bad it has been. The situation is the same everywhere. The type of products we carry are also very volatile and highly inflammable and this affects us adversely if a tanker falls into a pothole or crater.”

Comrade Atanda who stressed that about 3,000 tankers ply the road on daily basis to lift petroleum products in Lagos, also enumerated some of the steps taken to register their plight with the government with little or no positive results.

Unfruitful dialogues

Atanda added:  “We have been talking with the government. We have on several occasions held dialogue with them. We have even stopped work to make them see reasons but they keep promising that they will repair the road; we hope things will change for the better. There are more than 50 depots in Lagos, which means we have between 50 and 400 trucks that load in one day. If you look at it closely, you will discover that a minimum of 3,000 trucks travel to Lagos on daily basis to lift petroleum products.

“Our Union is spread all over the country and most of the time, we tell our correspondents to ensure their products have been paid for and tickets are ready before coming to Lagos, if not, they should park at Ogere and come to Lagos to process their paper.

The only park provided by the State government is at Orile Iganmu which usually overflows in most cases. It came into existence about five years ago with the capacity of 2000 trucks. The government knows it is too small for us and we have always held dialogue with them. We are doing the job together in terms of clearing the road or put the drivers where they are supposed to be, it is a daily exercise between us and LASTMA.”

Only two tank farms to serve about 50 depots

The inadequacy of tank farms to accommodate the over 3,000 tankers that come into Lagos on a daily basis, compels many of them to park along the expressway. The distance between the Orile terminal and the depots as well as the outrageous fees charged by the government at the terminal, have not helped matters either. Vanguard learnt that only two tank farms owned by Capital Oil and MRS are in operation in Lagos and their capacity is not enough to house the  numerous tankers.  The tankers park which the Federal Government embarked upon last year, is yet to be completed due to paucity of funds.

Comrade Atanda also spoke in this direction. His words: “We cannot really blame our men because we have always tried our best which is not enough. Ideally, you see many of our drivers on the road because Orile is congested. I am sure many of them wiould like to stay off the road if they had a better arrangement. There are two depots on the expressway; MRS at Toyota and Capital Oil at Sanya which we make use of to avoid gridlock on the expressway but both are always filled up and the only option is to make use of the expressway.

Tickets for loading

Some of these depots also have branches outside Lagos which are not enough. If we want to talk about the number of depots, I think we have not got up to 30 per cent in Nigeria. This is always the problem. The tickets for loading are affordable. As soon as you have paid to the depot, what is expected of them is to facilitate your loading. Nobody is complaining about the charges or expect a free service, our drivers want comfort, they want a place to lay their head after driving from far away places.

What we always argue about is that, it is like somebody who builds a house without toilet facilities, under normal circumstances, a depot is supposed to have a parking space for the drivers but none of the depot owners have made provision for this. It is unfortunate that in Nigeria, most of them are built without parking facilities. We are not the one that approved the project for them, so we cannot mount pressure on them to make necessary provision.

Slow pace of work on FG Tankers’ park

Meanwhile, work on the construction of a Tankers and Trailers’ Park being by executed the Federal Ministry of Works at the Tin Can end of the expressway has reached an advanced stage. Our reporter who visited the site reports that sand filling, piling and construction work of an overhead bridge that will specifically serve tankers and trailers coming into the park to wait for their turns to carry their consignments from the Apapa and Tin Can Ports have reached advanced stages.

But the multi-billion naira project which is being handled by Borini Prono, can no longer be delivered this month as originally planned. A source at the site who pleaded anonymity told our correspondent that inadequate funding of the project compelled the contractor to restrict its work to the construction of the over-head bridge. The source regretted that expectations that this year’s budget would make provision for the completion of the project fell flat because no provision was made for it in the budget estimates. Efforts to reach the Federal Controller, South-West Zone, Mr. Ejike Mgbemena, an Engineer, failed as he kept on telling Vanguard to call back because he was attending a crucial meeting.

It would be recalled that the Federal Government through the Ministry of Works commenced the construction of the park in September 2011 to free the expressway of the menace of trailers and tankers that have taken over the entire expressway thereby subjecting motorists and commuters to daily traffic nightmares.

Coping with Govt’s ultimatum

Although the government has successfully taken the tankers off the expressway, fears are rife that they would soon return. Those who hold this viewpoint would readily tell whosoever cares to hear that this is not the first time, tankers have been forcibly evicted from the highways only for them to make a return a few weeks later, apparently because the government did not provide them with alternative parking places.

Hear the tanker drivers scribe: “The ultimatum will always be there. One thing I want to point out is that we manage the road together because we don’t want friction on our roads. Since we deal with essential commodities and our rail system is bad, we cannot stop plying the road unless we stop working. We have used various means (including strike action) to curb the menace you are talking about but we are yet to get a positive response. Sometimes we go out of our way to stop working and in the course of doing that, we still cause another problem. The State government said we should make use of the service lane, but sometimes, when the depots issued us tickets for loading, some of them might programme 100 trucks and end up loading 80. Definitely, the remaining 20 will find somewhere to sleep until the following day to avoid causing another gridlock in the course of going back to Ogere to spend the night since they will come back the following day.

“I can state categorically that about 80 per cent of the petroleum product is consumed in Lagos because the refineries outside Lagos are not working. The only solution is to build more refineries and  rehabilitate the existing ones so that the burden will be lesser on Lagos. As long as importation exists and Lagos is the only place with storage facilities, the problem of road congestion must be managed carefully. We shall not stop doing our businesses while the government will not stop managing the road.

“The government should not enforce unnecessary laws on us. If it wants things to go well, it should use other means instead of imposing fines. We don’t want to be called names by people. If we want to embark on strike action to correct some impressions by the public or register our plight with the government, people will label us wicked, some will say, “these tanker drivers! their own is too much jare.’

Sometimes if we tell the government about the road situation, they will not do anything. There are gullies and craters on the roads which have been disturbing our job but who do we run to? How can we make the masses to reason with us, what do we do to let the masses know we are doing this for a purpose? We are part of the masses. Whenever there is strike action, the tanker drivers will also feel it because we don’t have access to fuel, we also buy from the filling stations and if the fuel does not get there, how do we have access to it?

“We have been meeting with Lagos State Commissioner for Transport, Mr. Ibrahim Opeifa, and Federal Ministry of Works. We have told them to work hand in hand with us to ensure sanity on our roads. Forcing or arresting our men will not solve the problem, they should know that it is not our intention to cause traffic gridlock on our roads.

On our own part, we have got a towing van and patrol vehicles because we know our members understand our language faster than any other people. Peradventure you find our members constituting a nuisance on the road, you can call our office and we shall give you adequate attention. LASTMA officials should also assist or dialogue with our drivers to fix their vehicles in times of difficulty rather than towing them to their offices”.