If you have any business in Apapa area of Lagos and actually get there and manage your way back, you will agree with one Steve Hanke, an American Professor of Applied Economics at the John Hopkins University in the United States of America (USA) that Nigerians are one of the most miserable people on earth. He recently classified Nigerians as the sixth most miserable people in the world.
After sleeping without electricity, which is in rare supply these days of wicked heat, go to Apapa and your misery will know no bounds. You will weep for Nigeria and Nigerians, more than you may have been doing. Yet, many Nigerians work and live in Apapa.
First thing that will hit you so hard if you are not a regular to Apapa is the level of decadence and people generally suffering and smiling struggling to find their way around a completely locked down business hub.
The situation in Apapa, to say the least, is a monumental national disgrace. And you wonder how on earth any human can go through the pains of daily life in today’s Apapa and still remain sane.
Apapa, like most Nigerian cities anyway, is so dirty, tacky and badly run. The conditions of access roads to the Tin Can and Apapa Ports are terribly bad. Indeed, Apapa is an expression of a completely run down system with no sign of any form of government.
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Apart from factories, bonded terminals and other corporate organisations, 27 tank farms are said to operate in Apapa, which all combine to create traffic lockdown for exporters and importers desirous of meeting deadlines to supply or take delivery of their products from the ports. Residents and visitors are not spared the harrowing ordeal, either.
Tankers and trailers have taken over the roads and bridges leading to Apapa from any side of Lagos. In some cases, the roads are completely gone, broken down and taken over by refuse or ponds. The rail lines that used to ease haulage of goods from the ports, thus decongesting the roads of trailers have long disappeared.
Five thousand tankers/trailers are said to invade Apapa daily for business with all the attendant misery compounded by decrepit roads and observance of the law in breach by drivers, among others. And so, stationary traffic could stretch from the ports to almost a distance of about 20 kilometres.
To that effect, business environment in Apapa, where Nigeria’s foremost seaports are situated, is one hell of a nightmare fueled by grinding traffic and delays from inefficient port operations.
The chaotic system in Apapa, no doubt, confirms how the economy is bleeding while government appears to have no clue on how to end the mess.
According to the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, for instance, Nigeria loses about N3.06 trillion (or $10 billion) on non-oil export and about N2.5 trillion corporate earnings across the sectors, annually to the debacle that is now Apapa. This is ridiculous for a country barely out of recession.
Cargo dwell time at the ports was said to have increased to 22 days, which is against the global best business practices in the maritime trade as it is the longest in the West Africa sub-region, a report states.
Bottom line is that such a situation will surely cause massive economic and job losses. For instance, 25 per cent of perishable products like cashew, which was being exported to Vietnam in 2017, reportedly rotted away after overstaying for weeks at the ports.
Operational ineptitude in which cargo clearing is delayed because facilities like scanners are obsolete or non-existent, multiple/illegal charges, breakdown of security, corruption and muscle flexing by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), encumber the ports from delivering on their potential (to generate revenue).
According to the LCCI, there are about 14 MDAs currently operating at Apapa, something it describes as outmoded.
Although Steve Hanke’s rating of Nigerians, contained in his annual Misery Index, is calculated based on economic indices like unemployment, inflation and bank lending rates, leaving out the Apapa menace would seem to be a disservice to the report, figuratively. For who knows, the Apapa threat, when added to the indices, may push Nigeria to top of the Misery report, again figuratively.
But seriously, it will take very special miracle for a people so badly pummeled with the vagaries and pains of existence, majorly self-made and orchestrated by bad leadership like Nigerians, not to be extremely miserable.
A higher Misery Index score reflects a higher level of “misery,” according to Hanke, and it’s a simple enough metric that a busy president, without time for extensive economic briefings, can understand at a glance,’ he added.
It would seem our president, Muhammadu Buhari, whether busy or not, perfectly understands the level of misery Apapa is inflicting on Nigerians. Problem is, he chooses to treat it with levity.
Or how else can one explain that during his visit to Lagos in February for a campaign rally hosted by his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), all the articulated vehicles that indiscriminately parked on all roads leading to, and within Apapa and causing extreme misery to Lagos residents, were cleared overnight, a development that brought some level of sanity, albeit temporarily?
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Perhaps, the president, on the other hand, is also not aware, does not understand the level of this misery because all those trucks that disappeared during his visit, would return back to base immediately his business in Lagos was over, taking the residents back to terrible misery.
For how can an understanding government live with the protracted Apapa gridlock? Two seaports in Lagos, all located in Apapa are said to handle more than 60 per cent of goods imported into the country. And while the volume of cargoes imported into the country has been on the rise, increasing from about 35 million metric tonnes in 2006 to more than 80 million metric tonnes in 2018, the dilapidated roads through which these goods are taken out of the ports to their final destinations hardly get any attention.
The resultant effect, naturally, is a backlog of cargoes at the port. Cargoes that should ordinarily exit the port within three days after discharge from the ship could remain there for as long as 21 days, waiting for trucks.
Instead of addressing this, the federal government would rather spend huge sums of money on an apparently fruitless venture of looking for oil where drillers may end up finding water.
It is not rocket science to know that solution to the Apapa misery is to fix the roads and seek alternatives to cargo evacuation. A situation where the port has increased in capacity but with access roads progressively deteriorating and hardly rehabilitated talk less of building new ones since they were built in the 70’s or so, will only mean retrogression.
And to add insult to injury, the bridge exiting Apapa at Leventis/Area B, has been shut down for several months even after work had been carried out on it, which means that inflow and outflow of trucks remain a major challenge in Apapa.
What kind of system does that with few roads majorly in terrible state leading to a business hub like Apapa?
It is inconceivable that the federal government is treating the protracted mess called Apapa with levity. One would have expected swift response by government when in 2017, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, raised the alarm that Nigeria was losing N140 billion weekly to the debacle.
But no! Going to two years now, the Muhammadu Buhari government has remained indifferent, may be because it does not see Apapa as a priority. Neither does the federal government see the need to improve on the state of Port Harcourt and Calabar ports.
And so, Apapa remains one hell of a nightmare to both visitors and residents, to the point that many business owners and residents are now relocating from the area.
Actually, President, GRA Apapa Residents Association, Brigadier- General Shola Ayo Vaughan (retd), alleges that the Apapa debacle is a plot government and its agencies, in connivance with the shipping companies, are deliberately executing to force landlords, residents and business owners out of the area.
Incidentally, movement to and from Apapa by these oppressors, he said, is by boats, reason why he said they are insensitive to the traffic created by their inability to organise a good structural and orderly approach to the ports, a situation he lamented, has rendered the lives of the people so miserable.
Indeed, there is no arguing that the Apapa debacle has wrecked businesses, denied residents of good lives and has subjected them to a life of misery.