Lagos plans 1,000-truck park to address Apapa gridlock

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, on Wednesday brainstormed with tank farm owners in Apapa on how to resolve the perennial traffic gridlock in the commercial area of the city.

Ambode promised to expand the Truck Park in Orile-Iganmu to accommodate 1,000 trucks.

The governor, who spoke at an interactive session with the operators and others stakeholders in the petroleum storage sub-sector at Lagos House, Ikeja, said the state government was ready to embark on the project with inputs from the tank owners.

He added, “If the tankers must come every day into Lagos, we must have location for them but not on the bridge. As an immediate solution, I will continue to use my task force to clean up the bridge; and also immediately look at my truck park at Orile and expand it from 350 to 1,000 (capacity).

“So, for us to be able to accommodate you, you must come to the middle of the table. You cannot fold your arms and say that it does not concern you. I am giving up the security and safety of Lagosians by accommodating 57 tank farms and giving up the safety and peace of Lagosians by allowing over 1,000 trucks to enter Lagos every day.

“It is very clear that tank farm owners do not want to take responsibility for what is happening in the Apapa gridlock. It is very clear also that if we are to start to think in the manner in which these presentations have been made, we would say ‘to get everybody off the bridge, there should be no tanker driver that should enter Lagos except he is cleared by the tank farm owners or maybe, we find a ticketing system to control them.”

Ambode added, “We have emphasised that the joint task force that we set up to clean up the bridge must continue and make sure that there is easy motorable access. We are not in a position to identify who is an intruder on the bridge. Our joint task force will continue and make sure that the truck and tankers do not constitute a nuisance to road users.

“We want to take off the gridlock in Apapa; that is what I want to hear. How do we do it? We can decide that no truck enter Lagos. We will do task force for 24 hours. No truck comes into your depots, but we would not shift the lockjam to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway because the point here is that some of them do not even have any reason to be here. But they used to be on that axis.”