Economy prosperity : How Oyetola clears traffic gridlock and illegalities at Lagos ports For more Efficiency

…stakeholders commend Oyetola for his efforts for sanitising the Tin-Can port for efficiency

Over the past few years, Port users lost several billions of naira to the traffic gridlock and illegalities on the roads leading to the nation’s seaports in Lagos. But sanity has been restored following the recent cleaning of the busy port access roads of refuse, shanties, illegal checkpoints, and trucks by the Nigerian Port Authority, under the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.

During the crisis period, Nigeria ports became uncompetitive among its peers in Africa as importers were diverting cargoes destined for Nigerian seaports to neighboring countries due to the port inefficiency, a development that became a source of concern to the federal government.

To solve the traffic challenge, the federal government through the NPA provided N1.8bn to get the road motorable and accessible to trucks. The E-call up system, also known as Eto, was also introduced to enhance port efficiency.

In December 2023, minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, held a stakeholders’ engagement, which preceded the setting up of a committee to see to the problem of extortion and illegal checkpoints on the port access roads. The minister promised to eliminate extortions of truck drivers, illegal checkpoints, and unapproved parking of trucks along the port access road within one week.The minister blamed the above-listed illegalities for traffic congestion along the port access roads. According to Oyetola, the maritime industry is germane to the development of the economy and the goal was to ensure that stakeholders do not lose money due to delays. True to his promise, sanity has returned to the Tin-Can Island Port corridor as the perennial traffic gridlock along Mile 2 and Tin-Can in Lagos disappeared following a recent clearance operation jointly carried out by the NPA and the Lagos State Government.

Industry stakeholders have commended the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy for the efforts put into sanitising the Tin-Can- Mile 2 road.

Reacting, the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), commended the Ministry for clearing the perennial traffic gridlock that hitherto impeded movement in and out of Lagos Ports.

Also, Customs Area Controller of Tin-Can Island Port Command, Dera Nnadi, commended the Minister, the NPA leadership and the LASG on their collaborative efforts to ensure sanity returned to the port access road.

“We had meetings with NPA, exporters, importers, shipping lines and freight forwarders. We thanked the media for highlighting the challenges we faced on the port access road. The good thing now is that the road has been cleared and the heaps of refuse removed for us to have sanity around the port corridor,” Nnadi said.

An haulage operator, Bala Mohammed, in his own remarks also gave kudos to the Ministry for clearing the Augean stable of Tin-Can.

“The Tin-Can road clearance would further heighten security within the Tin-Can Port, promote free-flow traffic, and enable the Eto call-up system to function effectively for seamless evacuation of cargo and trade facilitation.”