With motorists daily stuck in scary traffic jam caused by bad roads – and threatened by robbers and urchins, while the government and the police look the other way – the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway, which leads to the Lagos ports, has become a dangerous proposition, write ’NONYE BEN-NWANKWO and COMFORT OSEGHALE
Mr. Rowland Johnson works with an oil servicing company located on Wharf Road, Apapa, Lagos. Although he closes at 7.30 pm, Johnson has unwittingly formed the habit of staying back in the office till 11 pm on working days.
For about five hours after work, he busies himself with everything other than his official responsibilities. Sometimes, he just sits, gazing like an incarcerated animal.
Occasionally, armed with his car key, he saunters from his office to the garage within the premises to have another look at his official Kia car, which he dared not attempt to drive out of the compound.
At other times, he makes frantic calls to his wife, other family members or some other persons. As expected, the calls to his wife and relations are to inform them that he is still in the office. His calls to friends are to confirm if the traffic on the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway had eased.
In fact, the strategic measures taken by this young and upwardly-mobile professional before leaving the office every evening is the same approach he takes in the morning when he is leaving his Ikotun-Egbe residence in Alimoso Local Government Area.
In summary, going to Apapa, where he earns a living, and returning to his residence daily, is a nightmare for him. The experience is both scary and unsettling, but he would rather go about it this way and save himself possible stress by driving in terrible daily traffic and wasting his fuel, among other reasons.
But, like Johnson, this has become the schedule of many workers and executives operating in that area of Lagos State. However, since that is where they earn their living, they have no choice than to continue in their hellish experience.
It was observed that it is not only the people working in corporate organisations experience this nightmare. In fact, everyone who has anything to do in that area appears to have no good word to say about their trips to and from Apapa.
Commercial bus drivers who ply the route are not exempted. On a daily basis, they complain bitterly about what they have to go through to ensure they make daily returns to the bus owners and get something for themselves.
One of the bus drivers, Chiemela Okpara, at 12 noon on Tuesday, told VISTA that he was already closing for the day.
“Didn’t you see the traffic? I have just been able to make three trips. This is my last one. I will just take passengers back to Oshodi and I will find my way from there. I don’t think I can cope with this kind of traffic. I left my house as early as 4.30 am and I have really nothing to show for it. It has been like that every day. The government should do something about this road,” he says.
Just as Okpara is complaining about the road, a banker, Linda Isokari, says bus drivers are partly to be blamed for the gridlock on the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway.
“They are simply reckless and impatient. Oh yes, the main culprits are the tanker drivers, but the commercial bus drivers are not making things easier either,” she says.
VISTA observed during a trip to the road that drivers of articulated vehicles had practically squeezed the other motorists out of the major lanes on the way to the wharf. Other road users who dare to compete for space with them had to sweat it out for several hours before getting to their destinations.
Azuka Ogu, a journalist with a newspaper in Apapa, says she had to seek an alternative route to her Apapa office.
Ogu lives at Mile 2, so it should take her about 15 minutes to drive to Apapa, but the reverse is the case, as she says it takes her about two hours to get to work every day.
“I had to find an alternative route. I couldn’t continue experiencing this terrible traffic. It is a nightmare. We don’t make use of our car park again. Everybody parks across the road. How would you dare park inside the office premises? Except you won’t go home that day, it would certainly take you forever to turn to the other side of the road and head home,” she says.
Kenneth Ndu, a clearing agent who lives in Egbeda, says he leaves his home as early as 6 am to escape the traffic in Apapa.
“The tankers and trucks are the major cause of this chaos on the expressway. They park their vehicles on the road to await their turn to load their products. There is no garage for them to park. And they cause terrible traffic on the road,” he says.
Ndu says it used to take him less than 40 minutes to arrive at Apapa port from his home in the past. “Now, it takes three hours to get there,” he says.
He adds, “If I have to release a container, I have to be at the port before 8 am in order to get a tally between one and 100. If the government creates another route for truck and tanker drivers, this madness will stop.”
But then, Ndu does not blame drivers of articulated vehicle drivers alone for the perpetual gridlock. Commercial bus drivers, he adds, are also partly responsible for the chaos.
“The danfo drivers pick passengers at any point on the road. They don’t even bother to pull over at all. They are partly to be blamed for the traffic situation along this road,” he says.
Another respondent and a contractor, Victor Dickson, told VISTA that many lives had been lost on the expressway.
He says, “I dread coming to Apapa. If I have to do so, I make sure I am here early in the day so that I can conclude my business quickly and leave before the workers close for the day. Transport fares are sometimes doubled or tripled in the evenings because of the amount of hours the drivers eventually spend in traffic burning fuel.
“Apapa roads have not always been like this; I once lived here. Back then, articulated vehicles were a rare sight on the expressway and this is because goods were being transported by railway and not through the wharf as it is today. It was when the railways stopped functioning that the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway began to deteriorate. This expressway was not originally built to handle the load it carries on a daily basis. As if that was not enough, there is also the insincerity of the Federal Government. A certain amount of money ought to be set aside for the maintenance of this road every year, but the government will not do that because they will not make enough kickbacks that way. They will rather wait for the road to fall apart. That way they can appropriate millions and billions for its reconstruction, making it easy to fritter away enough funds.
“I have witnessed a commercial motorcyclist crushed to death on this road; that was before the restriction. The okada was riding beside an articulated vehicle. As the driver of the vehicle was trying to navigate a carter, the container it was carrying fell on the motorcyclist. Certainly, the man did not survive.”
Vista observed that despite past efforts by the state and Federal Government to put a stop to this trend, the road has continued to gain notoriety, no thanks to the ubiquitous articulated vehicles, and the killer craters, which dot the length and breadth of expressway.
Comments from more road users establish the fact that a journey to Apapa is not just an ordeal; the road is a shame to the nation.
Driving on the expressway in the dry season is hectic, but doing so during the rains is doubly dangerous as motorists make wild guesses to avoid the killer craters hidden by the floods.
Every working day, the scenario on the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway remains the same: other motorists and articulated vehicles jostle to get ahead of the other on the fairly good portions of the road.
At the Trinity and Tin Can areas of the expressway, huge craters take up most parts of the double carriageway. Vehicular movement is at snail speed, as motorists carefully manoeuvre the danger spots.
Articulated vehicles carrying unfettered containers sway dangerously as the drivers struggle with the twin tasks of navigating the killer craters and ensuring that their goods don’t fall off.
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