LAGOS: Sanwo-Olu promises sanctions against those extorting drivers on port access roads

Says Lagos to take over management of traffic on the route

Over 500 Police, LASTMA officers to de deployed

Truck drivers want end to extortion

GOVERNOR Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Monday said the state government would take over the management of traffic along the port access road, promising he would scapegoat anyone caught extorting truck drivers. 

Speaking while on a tour of Apapa, Sanwo-Olu said: “This is not the first time, certainly not the second and infact this is about the third or the fourth time in my government that we are trying to see how we bring better solution to Apapa gridlock.

“On all of the time we have come, we knew that we are having a road construction but you can see now that inside Apapa, there is significant progress in this area particularly on the road construction site. A lot of road has been done.

“Today, even being a public holiday, it is even difficult for us to say that we have achieved a 100 percent traffic free flow into Apapa. And we have all heard all the complaints from the various stakeholders, the unions, freight forwarders, drivers, everyone has said their own side of the story and you can see that it is multifaceted.

“There have been accusations around cabal collecting money from operators and accusations around being hijacked by some people and there have also counter accusations.

“What are we solving at the end of the day. We are trying to bring about a cohesive metrics where all the stakeholders in Apapa understand and appreciate the various role that everybody needs to play. And let everybody identify and solve it.

“You are aware that since last year the presidential task force has been working. Now, there is a process that is starting in which the state government needs to take over that task force. One of the reasons for this trip is to start that process, to see things for myself.

“The state government is to set up a seamless operation to have a team of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) about 400 to 500, dedicated to Apapa gridlock along side a team of police men from Area B dedicated to the same gridlock.

“More importantly, be able to speak to all the big men in the office, the Ship owners, the Port terminal operators, Freight forwarders, who are not here, with the port drivers, who we see that they are the one carrying the brunt.

“So when somebody is supposed to and deliver a container and he is being charged a demurrage, that cannot be a working operations.

“When it takes eight to ten hours for operation to handover to another team.
For that whole eight to ten hours, the ports are locked, the trucks cannot go in, because someone is just trying to take over

“For me, is to be in the heart of it, be inside and understand what the issues are and I have seen it again and go back to see and plot a template.

“Then escalate some of these things to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), have a conversation with Minister of Transport m, get Nigeria Port Authority (NPA) to understand what their roles are.”

The governor asked those alleging extortion to bring evidence as he was ready to make a scapegoat of any involved in the extortion.

 “I am hoping that this trip will give us another opportunity to resolve this issue, identify the roadblocks. I have said to them, give me the evidence of those people that are collecting money from you. That is also important. We are going to make people as scape goat.

“It is part of ensuring that we reduce the ease of doing process if businesses are expensive to run they will pass the on the cost to the customers.

“It is a process and we Wii not say they we have all the solutions but we have seen the process again we have see that we can improve this process and we have identified the stakeholders.

“We need to also go back and see how we can normalise those things and bring about especially these people in the offices and understand that we have a problem  here and we have to solve the problem.”

As the governor was moving round,  articulated vehicle drivers, in a rancorous manner, appealed to Sanwo-Olu,  to help put an end to the pains and extortion they daily experience in their bid to access the Lagos ports. 

From Lily port, to Apapa port and Tin Can port, the message was the same. They maintained that the process for gaining entry into the ports was cumbersome with security officers and members of the Federal Task Force extorting them. They gave varied fees being paid by them to be from N150,000 to N250,000 per truck. 

Mostly young boys, they chorused and shouted their complaints, as the governor walked past them or drove through their corridor, sometimes to a deafening point. 

At points where the governor made a stopover, because they were angrily shouting their comments at almost the same time,  the governor was not able to fully hear them out. 
Earlier, the governor listened to two unions within the ports, who countered themselves about the state of things around the port access roads. 

One of the unions alleged that the Federal Taskforce has failed in its duty and that they were not happy with the extortion going on around the ports before articulated vehicles gained access, while the other claimed they do not know the union members claiming that extortion was going on along the port access road. There were also complaints of turn-around time and delays in gaining access into the ports.