Stakeholders have expressed concern over the abandonment of the failed portion of the road linking Brewery-Ijora-7UP to Apapa by the Federal and Lagos state governments, a situation they said has hindered passage for container bearing trucks while posing threat to port operations.
This is even, as some customs brokers and freight forwarders have called on the government to urgently fix the failed portion of the road before it results in port congestion.
A customs broker, Eugene Okafor, told Vanguard Maritime Report that portion around Iganmu Bridge, Ijora, is so bad that trucks are falling along the road.
According to him, “It is like they do not care about what is happening on that part of the route to the ports and at the port; all they care about is the revenue they collect. The time raining season has not started would have been a good time for all those places to be fixed.
A freight forwarder, Adewale Olademeji, explained that unless that portion of the road is fixed the route which has been free for a while now will again witness the kind of gridlock that the Mile2 – Tin-can end of the port is currently facing.
He said the raining season has further worsened the condition of the road, stressing that the situation combined with the multiple checkpoints along the route would lead to congestion at Apapa port.
When contacted, the Head of Corporate and Strategic Communication of Lagos Port Complex, Apapa, Arit Nwokedi, told Vanguard that he cannot confirm if there is congestion, adding that only the terminal operators can do so.
But the Public Relations Officer of Apapa Area 1 Customs Command, Abubakar Usman, said to the best of his knowledge, that there is no congestion at the port.
