The Lagos state government has directed
owners and operators of articulated vehicles/trailers and petroleum tankers to
stay away from the state “for now”.
Olanrewaju
Elegushi, acting commissioner for transportation, said the move is to curtail
the gridlock that has taken over Apapa and its environs.
Elegushi said the incessant traffic
bottleneck in the area has impacted negatively on the commercial activities of
the citizens.
He said investigations revealed the traffic
lockdown was a direct result of the challenges being faced by operators of the
ports in loading the trucks that have come from the hinterland to evacuate
imported items.
He also said the gridlock was worsened by the
current rehabilitation of some major and minor roads necessitating the closure
of some routes in Apapa.
Steve Ayorinde, commissioner for information
and strategy, who was also at the briefing said: “We keep having this issue of
gridlock in Apapa because issues that the ports authorities and the
concessionaires are dealing with are recurrent and the spillover effect of
those issues are causing all these.
“If the ports can’t determine how many trucks
they are able to deal with on a daily basis; how they are informed about coming
in and going out, then it will be a problem to deal with.
“What we need to do is to keep on engaging
with them, we keep on engaging with other states and so on. I mean, people who
have trucks in other states and already know that there is a logjam in Lagos,
why send other trucks to Lagos?
“The idea is not to say don’t come into
Lagos. It is part of what makes the economy of Lagos what it is but we are
saying let us deal with the logjam that we have presently and there is no way
we can deal with it, we can only deal with the effect because the causes
essentially have to do with the operations at the Ports and that is why we are
appealing to them.”
The government, however, urged the operators
to utilise the Ogere trailer park and other parks outside the state in the
interim to avoid further hardship for motorists on the road.
News
Source: - The Cable | September 22, 2017.
Photo Source: - The Pulse | December 17, 2015.
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