…Gridlock as tankers, trailers again take over road
• NPA’s Eto system, truck holding bay collapse
• Truck drivers block expressway, stay over 2 weeks before getting to port
• LASTMA, police, hoodlums extort drivers
•22 persons killed along Tin-Can port over refusal to give kickback in 2022
By Steve Agbota
Worried by the intractable gridlock on the Oshodi-Apapa road that had made transactions in the maritime industry difficult because of the difficulties encountered in accessing the Apapa and Tin-Can Inland ports, former Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, in 2017, took an aerial trip to assess the situation and consequently find a lasting solution.
After his assessment, Osinbajo announced that the Federal Government would be working with private sector players to resolve the perennial traffic gridlock on the route.
He consequently ordered the then Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to work out clear cut objectives to end the gridlock on the Oshodi-Apapa road corridor.
Following this arrangement, the NPA developed the electronic call-up infrastructure for cargo trucks, known as Eto, which promptly reduced Apapa traffic gridlock by 80 per cent.
But today, the Apapa gridlock seems to have again overwhelmed the relevant authorities.
Sunday Sun investigation showed that trucks have again taken over the Oshodi-Apapa road, lining up on the expressway from Apapa to beyond Sanya Bus stop, making vehicular movement along the corridor hectic.
Our investigation revealed monumental corruption and extortion perpetrated by some unauthorised individuals working in league with security agents to make life unbearable for maritime stakeholders, especially truck owners, drivers and port users along the nation’s port access corridor.
Consequently, importers, clearing agents and truck owners have expressed concerns over the worsening gridlock along the ports access road, especially the Oshodi, Mile 2 and the Tin-Can Island Port Complex (TCIPC) corridor.
The stakeholders pointedly accused the officials of the LASTMA, Security Department and Police who were deployed by the Lagos State government to manage traffic in the area of mass extortion.
Today, the Apapa-Oshodi corridor has been tagged the most notorious road anybody would want to ply in Lagos State due to the atrocities going on along that axis.
Along the corridor, flagrant acts of extortion are daily linked to the persistent gridlock that has returned and currently extending beyond Sanya Bus stop from the Apapa-TinCan Island ports.
Investigations by Sunday Sun also revealed that extortion and brutality of truckers are now major part of the day to day business activities of both state and non-state actors along the port corridors.
As a result of this menace, nothing less than 22 people were allegedly killed last year due to their refusal to give bribe to both government and non-government actors who operate along the port corridors.
One of the reasons fueling the gridlock along Mile 2 – Tin-Can Island Port road, Sunday Sun observed was the habit of petroleum tankers parking indiscriminately in their large numbers from Mile 2 to the Coconut end of the Tin-Can Island port on the expressway down to Apapa.
This menace has affected vehicular movements, port operations and business activities along the Mile 2 and Apapa corridor.
However, there are over 40 illegal checkpoints along Tin-Can Island port access road mounted by security agents, including the Police, LASTMA and area boys.
Sunday Sun learnt that in each of these checkpoints, especially the juicy ones, that the illegal levy collectors make nothing less than N400,000 in a day. Again, the area boys have returned to the corridor and are now enforcing traffic laws with various weapons, brutalising truck drivers and destroying their trucks.
Presently, truck drivers said that they spend an average of two to three weeks on the Tin-Can Island road trying to access the port, while some are carrying export produce or returning empty containers to the ports.
The truckers alleged that there is no substantial transit parks for their trucks, adding that those who claimed to have parks where trucks wait before call-up to enter the ports do not have parks or garages for them again, but virtual parks, saying that this was the reason some of the trucks have returned to the road to park indiscriminately.
Seotan Adeniyi, a truck driver, who spoke with Sunday Sun on Tin-Can Island Port road, said that extortion of drivers by security agents and area boys have become a matter of “Pay As You Go,” as failure to bribe them automatically means denial of access to the ports.
“I have been on the road for the past 12 days, I have spent close to N170,000 and I’m still at Coconut here trying to access the port. I’m carrying export not empty containers. The suffering and the hardship is too much for us. LASTMA, Police and area boys are making life difficult for us. The extortion is killing us.
“The area boys are working with LASTMA and Police. They collude together to extort us. The area boys come with big sticks, pipes and dangerous weapons to collect money from us. And any refusal to give money will result to victimisation and brutality of truck drivers. Lagos State government has failed to put these people in order and is like they have the backing of the state government,” he lamented.
Another truck driver, Ifeanyi Dave, said that extortion by security and traffic control officials remain the major cause of the unending gridlock along the Apapa-Oshodi expressway.
“Area boys and security agents will extort us during the day while miscreants from Olodi, Apapa will come in the night to rob us of our valuable items. Sometimes, before we wake up in the morning, our battery has been stolen by these hoodlums. They threaten us with dangerous weapons at night. We are just like a slave and refugee in our own country due to lawlessness of these people,” he lamented.
An exporter, Benson Ejiofor, said that traffic on the access port road is artificially created by human factors to extort money from truck drivers, exporters, importers and freight forwarders by creating traffic in order to delay truckers.
“As we speak now, from First Gate to Second Gate, we have several roadblocks mounted by these intentionally organised looters called security agents and the trucks must part with money before they can move else they turn you back.
“Do you know that from Mile 2 axis through Fatgbem Petrol Station, to Coconut costs about N170,000 per truck, while Coconut to Tin-Can Gate costs N70,000, amounting to N240,000 on the minimum excluding other bribes. My cashew seeds truck stayed for more than 21 days on the road because the driver refused to bribe his way through,” he said.
He said that most of the exporters have lost their potential customers due to these satanic elements called security agents around the port corridors.
He said that the government has tried to find a lasting solution to address the menace, but it has continued to defile all basic solutions.
Speaking with Sunday Sun, the Secretary General, Association of Maritime Truck Owners of Nigeria (AMATO), Mohammed Sani, said that the security and traffic enforcement teams that have been at Mile 2-TinCan corridor before the coming of Eto call up are still there today doing nothing to promote traffic orderliness and sanity, but only to stop and collect money from truck drivers at multiple checkpoints that are responsible for chaotic gridlock on the corridor.
“When former President Buhari was coming to Apapa, under 48 hours every road in the ports corridors were cleared. The moment the president left, traffic anarchy returned. The capacity to sustain traffic sanity is the visit by political leaders.
“In the absence of visitation by political leaders, traffic anarchy is for profit generation regardless of its implications on trade facilitation, ease of doing business and seamless evacuation of cargoes from the ports,” he said.
He added that the activities of area boys and union toll collectors manning the various checkpoints unlawfully and the aggressive collection of money from truckers just like the security and traffic operatives have also become one of the bane of traffic orderliness and sanity at the Mile 2-TinCan corridor.
“Instead of security operatives to chase away miscreants and other union toll collectors causing traffic anarchy, and unlawfully imposing NURTW Danfo and Korope tickets on truckers that do not belong to the union, they rather look away because they are both eating from the same pot with the miscreants and union toll collectors in Mile 2-TinCan corridor.
“Tanker operators do not have call-up system to batch and release tanker trucks to various fuel depots in a systematic and coordinated manner without causing obstruction to free flow of traffic. Most the tanker drivers would come, park and block the ports access lane for ports-bound trucks pending when they needed to enter and load fuel from the depots,” he explained.
According to him, the traffic and security operatives cannot do anything to promote traffic orderliness because their primary agenda is not to control traffic, but finding ways they can use to grab from the traffic anarchy.
However, he advised the Lagos State government to ban the activities of area boys and toll collecting unions causing traffic gridlock on the highways.
He added that unions should stop selling Danfo and Korope tickets to truckers that do not belong to their unions on the roads, saying that they should go and be selling tickets to their yellow-colour bus members in their respective parks.
He said that tanker trucks operators should have call-up system and pre-gate parks where they would be scheduled for their respective depots in a systematic and organised manner.
“Traffic and security operatives at Tin-Can corridor should be calibrated to focus on enhancing traffic sanity orderliness instead of seeing it as means of revenue generation from trucks and doing nothing to promote traffic orderliness,” he added.
One of the truck owners who spoke with Sunday Sun, Dike Ekene Collins, said the major cause of the gridlock around the Mile2-Oshodi expressway was racketeering that is going on top of the bridge and around the Mile 2 axis.
“If you are coming from Oshodi, just at Second Rainbow, you will start being extorted, after Second Rainbow, you would be extorted at Fatgbem, after Fatgbem, you will be extorted just before you ascend the Mile 2 Bridge and ontop of Mile 2 Bridge, you will be extorted N1,000, N2,000, up to N5,000 depending on your negotiating power. Even from UBA too, you will be extorted.
“The purpose of calling up these trucks from Eto is actually supposed to be a good one. What we have now is virtual parks where some of these stakeholders claimed to have facilities and they don’t have any facility. They are just collecting money from truckers without rendering any services and these trucks later find their ways on the roads.
“The tankers are going to their depots where they load their PMS and the AGO. What is going on is the racketeering on that Mile 2 access bridge. And those people in charge of this racket allow any system put in place to work.
“Ontop of that Mile 2 bridge, trucks going to Kirikiri don’t even have access to ply that road because they will be prevented from accessing the road. The reason is that maybe one tanker will come along in the middle of the road and park there to causing gridlock on the road,” he stated.
However, he said that different government representatives are using different area boys to enforce traffic law and is happening on top of that Mile 2 bridge.
“That is why the traffic continues day in, day out, and there is no way one will pass through that place without parting with money with the so-called area boys. I’ll also inform you that with your container truck, for you to access Mile 2, at least you spend N35,000.
“You keep parting with money from one point to the other. It has created a kind of business for certain area boys whereby they collect money from you and cross the container for you. Crossing that is what they call it. They cross it for you and you give them a sum of N35,000 to cross it to second gate.
“How do you expect whatever system put in place to work with these boys. Even the government people are using these boys too. Whenever you see government that is coming for enforcement, it is these same boys they still use to do whatever enforcement they are doing and that is what have been causing the gridlock,” he added.
He said that the tankers have also been causing gridlock as well, adding that initially, it was agreed that they will operate during the day while trucks will operate in the night, which has not happened.
“The major thing is the racketeering and this is million dollars industry. Some of our elders have their boys at different points extorting money from all manners of vehicles and that is why the thing has continued. And the government of Sanwo-Olu is looking the other way while this evil has been perpetrated against truckers.
“At our meeting with the Commissioner for Transport of Lagos State where the issue of area boys was brought out and the so-called unionists they denied ever knowung these area boys. They called them faceless people and all manner of names.
“Because the LASTMA man is putting on an official uniform and with this era of social media that is prevalent everywhere, they are afraid of coming out to ask for money because they don’t even know whether you are wearing camera or recording them,” he lamented.
He said that the uniform men work together with the thugs so that truckers won’t be able to point accusing fingers at them tomorrow that they collected money or that they are the ones sending these boys to collect money from the drivers.
The National President of the Council of Maritime Truck Unions and Associations, COMTUA, Mr Adeyinka Aroyewun said: “We cannot do the same way and expect a different result. The problem is not about taskforce coming to clear the roads. “Taskforce will always come and they will always find trucks to clear. Something was responsible, which is fraud found in the system as result of human interference in the Eto system.”
He said that the system cannot address the problem because they didn’t have any experience and they don’t have relationship with the terminal operators because the congestion is coming within the terminals.
“On every truck on that road, they are not parking there. They are going on a business and drop empty containers, drop cargoes or load cargoes. They are not actually parking on the road but the system has actually failed,” he added.
According to him, the Nigerian Ports Authority that is handling the system are no longer under the Ministry of Transportation. They are now under the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.
He said that the trucks have left the facility of the designated parks and now coming into the terminals because they have fulfilled the condition of paying in the parks.
“Even though, the parks are not serving the purpose, but the trucks you see on the roads have left the facilities. They left the park because they are called up. It is the failure of the system. They didn’t leave the park illegitimately, they left the park because they are called.”