Respite came for residents of Apapa who, for the past five weeks, had been groaning under the traffic nightmare caused by the indiscriminate parking of petroleum tankers and container trailers as the motors have been moved away.
The Lagos State Government had on Wednesday served the drivers a 48-hour ultimatum to move all trucks and tankers off from the Apapa Road. The deadline expired yesterday.
Checks yesterday evening showed that 80 per cent of the vehicles have been moved out.
There was easy flow of traffic approaching Apapa from Mile 2, as the traffic jam which was usually encountered from Alaba through Coconut, Tin Can and Liverpool has almost disappeared.
Same goes for approaching Apapa from Iponri/Costain through the Ijora Causeway.
The National Vice Chairman (Lagos zone) of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), Mr. Solomon Kilanko, said his members had been complying since Thursday.
He said: “As drivers, we have informed the transport owners of the directive by the Lagos State government. Yesterday (Thursday), our leadership met with the national leadership of the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), and we both agreed all our tankers must be moved out of Lagos.
“We have started that and by this evening (yesterday), 80 per cent of our trucks are off the road. I believe by Sunday, the whole place would have been cleaned up and the remaining would be left with depot owners. We have also discussed with the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DEPPMAN) to inform us once the product is available for us to come and lift.”
He said they had equally sent a circular to other chapters of the union for their members to stay away from Lagos for now since there’s no fuel to lift.
On his part, the NARTO’s state Chairman, Mr Stephen Okafor, said all trucks belonging to his members would be moved out of the road by Sunday.
He said any one caught by Sunday on the road “is on his own as everyone has been told to move out of the state”.
Though the head of the Lagos State Task Force, Bayo Sulaiman, was not available for comments, the Lagos State Sector Commander of the FRSC, Hyginus Omeje, confirmed that the trailers had been moved out and sanity had returned to most places at Apapa.
He said reports reaching him showed “most truck drivers have complied with the directive.”
He said the security agencies would go round the area today to monitor compliance and further instruct any recalcitrant driver to move before Sunday.
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