Trucks on Apapa Wharf Road amid the expiration of the deadline by government for them to quit the highway in Lagos… yesterday. PHOTO: NAJEEM RAHEEM
Curiously, all the vehicles resurfaced on the same roads and bridges a day after Buhari ended his visit and departed, showing that the gridlock is deliberate and motivated by business deals by security and traffic officers who are members of strange task forces. In what looked like a strategic response to the Sanwo-Olu challenge in Lagos, President Buhari also gave an ultimatum to the same tanker drivers to vacate Apapa roads and bridges within 72 hours and clear the mess within two weeks.
Consequently, the Nigerian Navy and all other military formations have been directed to withdraw from traffic management duties in the Apapa area, while military and paramilitary checkpoints in front of the ports and environs are to be dismantled. Rather than improve, the situation got worse. And now a new governor has taken up the gauntlet. The Lagos State Government has been helpless even as the Federal Government abdicated its responsibility on Apapa by leaving the port infrastructure to degenerate over the years.
The Articulated trucks induced gridlock at Apapa and its environs has continued to defy solutions...