The General Manager, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, Mr. Jide Oduyoye, has described most trucks plying Lagos roads, especially the Apapa axis, as unserviceable.
Oduyoye said this when the newly inaugurated Lagos State Government Task Team on Restoration of Law and Order on Apapa axis visited the Nigerian Shippers Council headquarters in Apapa, Lagos.
The LASTMA boss, however, lamented lack of regulation of truckers, even as he reiterated that LASTMA would not hesitate to sanction any case of indiscriminate parking of trucks on port access roads.
Meanwhile, in his speech, chairman of the new task team, Mr. Toyin Fayinka, solicited the corporation of NSC to enable it solve the traffic problem in Apapa.
Fayinka, who is also the Special Assistant on Transportation to the Lagos State Governor, said the essence of the visit to NSC was to introduce the team to the council, even as he emphasised that the team could not succeed in its assignment without the support of the NSC, Nigerian Ports Authority and other agencies in the maritime sector.
Responding, the Executive Secretary/CEO of NSC, Mr. Hassan Bello, described the Apapa traffic situation as an international embarrassment.
The traffic in Apapa, he added, is affecting the efficiency of the port.
The NSC boss assured the team that the Federal Ministry of Transportation had made the Apapa traffic situation a priority.
Evidence of this, he said, is the on-the-spot assessment visit paid to the ports by the minister, Chibuike Amaechi; the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Magdalene Ajani; and other top officials of the Ministry to Apapa, in December 2020.
Bello said the Implementation Committee on the Ministerial Directives to decongest traffic gridlock along the port access roads and Lagos Maritime Logistics Ring would work in tandem with the task team as a permanent solution to the Apapa traffic problem.
Bello added that it would benefit all Nigerians by eliminating the distortions in prices of goods imported into the country.
