The relocation of tank farms from the Apapa port road remains the permanent solution to the persistent gridlock in the area. The tank farms are not meant to be on the port road in Apapa because it is in the heart of the town;it is unsafe and causing congestion. As such, it is endangering the entire environment. So, the tank farms must be relocatedin the long run, while the roads must be fixed. Traffic cannot be controlled on those roads while they are in a deplorable state; the number of vehicles on the road is enormous and there is no parking space for the trucks. Most of those trucks enter the potholes and they get stuck; some of the trucks lack maintenance and coupled with the existence of the potholes it is difficult to move them. Also, lack of functional loading bays, dishonesty among stakeholders in coordinating the movement of the tankers in and out of the tank farms have made drivers to resort to queuing on the access roads to avoid being pushed to the back by other loaders of products. The tank farms need to be decentralised; the concentration of those tank farms has made Lagos to be the most unsafe place for people to live in the world.
No, the tank farms cannot be shut down because there will be problem of how to move fuel to consumers.What the government needs to do is to prepare and organise traffic flow until we have a better means of evacuating the petroleum products from the port and that is by the use of rail. Ideally most of the trucks that come to the port to take fuel are apparently coming from the North, middle belt and so on. If there is a good rail system, the products can be moved easily using the rail and that will solve the problems of tankers falling on the road. Since the rail lines are notfully functional yet on a medium to long term basis, the government should look at bringing into the country, tankers that can be used on the rail. Then one locomotive can pull about ten to twenty tanks full of petroleum products along the rail, which means that there will not much trucks on the road coming to move out products. Anothermajor thing to be done by the government is to get the road quickly fixed.
In the original plan of Apapa area, provisions were made to accommodate all trucks going in and out of Apapa to lift and drop containers. The truck bays are located where the tank farms are at present. If we go to the original plan they are not supposed to be there.Government should relocate the tank farm to Ogun state where we have much land and other business in Apapa area will move.Even if the government expands the road to five lanes without addressing the relocation of the tank farm to a more spacious environment, we will continue to experience gridlock in that area.
Yes the tank farms should be shut down or relocated. We do not need tank farms in Lagos anymore. They should be taken to other states because it is slowing down activities of agencies at both Tin-Can and Apapa ports. Also, I want to urge the government to fix the road and provide permanent solution to the issue of gridlock.
