Lagos city, Apapa is Dying, Ambode get to work.

They call it the cradle of Nigeria’s industralisation and also rightly, Apapa used to be a government reservation area in its true meaning. Not anymore. Apapa is today a jungle, the shame of Lagos and indeed of a nation forced into learning that transitions from one government to another can also be both painful and frustrating.

 

The chaos in Apapa was once left to the residents and the businesses there to bear but now the whole of Nigeria’s commercial capital must carry the cross.

Apapa’s unnerving experience began with the ineptitude of government and the greed of petrol tank farm owners, made worse by their unruly truck drivers.

Not too long ago, Apapa’s uncanny serenity offered arguably the best location for life and for business. Then the lords at the ministry of petroleum and their appointed agents at the department of petroleum resources began a regime of unbridled recklessness by issuing tank farm licenses to every one who could bribe them.

As the years went by, the ministry of works whose responsibility it is to fix the federal roads, simply went to bed while their finance ministry colleagues who raked in up to a trillion naira yearly from Apapa’s two sea ports buried their heads in the sand. A hapless Lagos government left it too late to respond and when it did, the PDP and Aso Rock saw no use helping their bitter rival in Lagos.

As the rivalry grew, Apapa was overtaken by a deluge of tankers and trailers that have turned the entire neighbourhood including all the access roads into a parking hell on earth. Businesses are suffering and some shutting down. Much needed jobs are being lost daily in Apapa and nearby. School children cannot go to school and family cohesion is under threat. There is pain all round.

Creek Road, where the first attempt at industralisation in Nigeria took root, has now become a nightmare that can not even be imagined. More than 60 per cent of the businesses on this once admired waterside street have closed down and their properties abandoned.

Elsewhere in Apapa, residents are fleeing their homes and heading out. Asset prices are collapsing.

When ever the governor of Lagos Akinwunmi Ambode finds time to visit Apapa, he will not be met by flag waving school children. He should find no welcome from a people shamelessly abandoned by their own government.

Apapa does not have to be like this. And Ambode does not have to be this helpless. There are a few steps he can take today. Step one,  compel the trucks heading to Apapa to tread on only one lane from the approach at Western Avenue and Ijora, leaving the other lane for commuters. Send a detachment of LASTMA people, policemen, navy officers and soldiers to enforce compliance at all the road intersections along the route in collaboration with these agencies.

Step two, urgently fix Apapa roads and then go on to properly mark out a lane truck-only lane. This will provide instant relief while consultations are held with the ports and the tank farm owners about how to ensure orderly trips to Apapa by trucks and trailers. This done, step three should include ascertaining  capacity to load the trucks and trailers, then ensure that only a given number of trucks and trailers which must have dated passes should be allowed into Lagos on a particular day. Today, trucks and trailers are spending days waiting already, so they can wait orderly somewhere, certainly not on fragile bridges linking Apapa.

Step four, gradually open access to some of the government petrol depots, especially in Moisimi and Ilorin, as well as other ports in Warri and Calabar and divert petrol laden ships to these locations. The current situation where all the nation’s petrol requirement has to be met from Lagos is both scandalous and unsustainable.

Step five, move the tank farms away from Apapa.