NPA hires firm for electronic management of Apapa traffic
By Ray Ugochukwu
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has engaged the services of an indigenous company to electronically address the perennial Apapa, Lagos, traffic gridlock which has remained a nightmare to port users for many years now.
Though the terms of the firm’s engagement are still sketchy, Seabreeze News learnt that the company, Trucks Transit Parks Limited (TTP) was unveiled to stakeholders yesterday at the NPA former zonal office in Apapa.
It was gathered that the electronic management of the gridlock will commence in January next year as many truck parks would be established in different parts of Lagos to take off articulated vehicles from the roads. Places designated to host such parks, according to a stakeholder at the meeting who pleaded for anonymity, are Ijora axis, Orile, Lagos-Badagry expressway, among others.
Managing Director of TTP, Mr. Temidayo Adeboye, was said to have used the stakeholders’ meeting to explain the electronic workings of the system, which he said would be a seamless operation.
He was said to have given the assurance that from January 2020 only trucks that had business would access the Lagos ports in record time. Truck drivers, he was quoted as saying, would rely more on their phones in gaining access to the ports.
Adeboye, who sought the cooperation of the stakeholders, was said to have assured that the huge man-hours usually lost by commuters and port users in Apapa and environs would be a thing of the past when the new system came into operation.
The Apapa traffic gridlock has remained a pain in the neck since the concession of the ports by the Federal Government in July 2006. All previous measures put in place to address the problem have failled.
Presently, the Presidential Taskforce on Apapa Traffic, NPA Security, various transport groups, virtually all security agencies in the state, among others, are involved in the gridlock management to no avail.
Rather than providing succor to port users and commuters, these bodies have allegedly constituted themselves into extortionists groups fleecing truck owners and operators of their hard earned money, a development that has added to the inflation in the country.
