By Olasunkanmi Akoni
LAGOS — The Lagos State Government has ruled out any plan to extend the 72-hour ultimatum given to tanker and other related articulated vehicle drivers operating along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway to remove their vehicles or face wrath of the law. The ultimatum expired few hours ago.

Worried by the incessant traffic gridlock along the axis and its determination to address the situation, Lagos State Government, last Wednesday, issued a fresh four-day ultimatum to the drivers as well as owners of vehicles parked illegally to remove them from road side.

The fresh ultimatum which has the backing of the Federal Government came on the heels of an inspection carried out by Governor Babatunde Fashola last week in Apapa area during which he discovered high level of degradation and nuisance being perpetrated by the tanker and trailer drivers in the area.

Late Wednesday evening, the state government convened an emergency meeting with major stakeholders that included National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG; Petroleum Tanker Drivers, PTD; Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, tank farm operators among others and warned that if by midnight of yesterday, owners of the trucks failed to remove them, the government would impound the vehicles and prosecute offenders accordingly.

The state Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, who led government representatives at the meeting which included his counterpart in the Local Government Ministry, Mr. Ademorin Kuye and the Chairman, Taskforce, Bayo Sulaiman, said the directive came from the governor

When a senior official of the Ministry of Transportation, who did not want to be mentioned was contacted on the backdrop that the state government has given another 24 hours extension to the enforcement exercise, billed to commence today, he said there was no instruction to that as everything was set for enforcement today.

“As am talking to you, every plan has been concluded and necessary logistics put in place to commence enforcement exercise of all illegally parked vehicles along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, I am not aware of any grace for extension.”

Opeifa, had earlier explained that government could no longer watch and fold its arm to allow such display of lawlessness in the state, saying that by Monday morning, the tanker and trailer drivers who failed to comply would have their vehicles towed in a total enforcement.

“Government wants you to do business but it does not want you to inconvenient others. Enough is enough. We want make sure the Apapa expressway, all through to Ijora bridge is free of traffic.

“We want to see that the road that leads to Tin Can is also free and that the police station at Ijora to Port is free of traffic. We want to see that tankers on Creek Road evacuated so that the road can be free.”

According to the commissioner, a combined team of Special taskforce officials of the Kick Against Indiscipline, KAI, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA and other government agencies had been fully mobilized to carry out the enforcement if vehicles owners failed to evacuate them from the road after the expiration of the ultimatum by next Sunday (yesterday) midnight.