As part of efforts to ensure ease vehicular movement and restore sanity in Apapa, the Lagos State Task Team on Law and Order in Apapa has begun towing of abandoned trucks parked on the port access roads.
The state government on Wednesday issued a 10-day notice to truck drivers to remove their trucks from the roads to avoid being towed.
During a visit to Apapa on Thursday by Financial Street, officials of the task team were seen moving some of the abandoned vehicles on Creek and Burma roads in Apapa, while the tyres of the ones that could not be towed were deflated.
Speaking on the development, Chairman of Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Osita Chukwu, lauded the task team, saying that the development would restore sanity in Apapa.
“It is a good development by the task team. If they can continue like this, within a space of time, there will be sanity in Apapa.
“Inadequacies come as a result of indiscipline and that indiscipline ought to be addressed. If somebody is not disciplined, he will continue to do the wrong thing and create more bottlenecks for port users, though he is aware that what he is doing is wrong,” he said.
Chairman, Association of Maritime Truck Owners, Chief Remi Ogungbemi, however, condemned the towing of trucks by the task team, describing it as unwarranted.
He said, “Unwarranted towing has been going on and they are doing it for their own interest. We are meeting with the Lagos State Government, so that we can take all the necessary action on how to guard against these indiscriminate towing of vehicles within Apapa or at any bonded terminal.”
Ogungbemi noted that while the association was not against efforts by the state government to restore sanity on the port access roads, the absence of an electronic call-up system that would notify the truck drivers when they were needed at the port was responsible for their parking on the roads.
He assured that with the planned deployment of an e-call-up system scheduled to take off on February 27, truckers would no longer park on the road.
