It is bewildering that the excruciating gridlock blighting business and social activities in Apapa, Lagos, has yet to be sorted out more than a year after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), constituted a high-powered task force to restore sanity to the area. Though there was temporary relief in the weeks following the empanelling of the presidential task force headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the chronic gridlock is back in full force. The high container traffic had compounded other problems such as inefficient inland transport, customs delays, corruption and labour-related slowdowns. This is bad for an economy that is on its knees and detrimental to businesses that are struggling to stay afloat.
For years, the road infrastructure in Apapa has fallen into disrepair. Successive governments made grand excuses despite the huge revenue estimated at over N1 trillion annually flowing into government coffers from the maritime trade. Businesses, trade and commuting are locked down for weeks. The Lagos State Government noted that about 6,000 heavy-duty trucks invade the ports access roads daily, vying to lift petroleum products, imported goods or drop goods/empty containers at the congested holding bays.
Nigeria ranked 110 out of 160 countries in the 2020 World Bank’s Global Logistics Performance Index. The logistics performance is the weighted average of a country’s scores on the efficiency of the clearance process; quality of trade and transport-related infrastructure (for example, ports, railroads, roads, information technology). It also includes the ease of arranging competitively priced shipments; competence and quality of logistics services (for example, transport operators, customs brokers); and ability to track and trace consignments and the timeliness of shipments in reaching destination within the scheduled or expected delivery time.
The cost to the economy is enormous. Ships are stranded offshore for weeks waiting to discharge their cargoes, attracting demurrage unnecessarily. In July, the Nigerian Ports Authority suspended the renewal of the licences of shipping firms that failed to provide holding bays for empty containers. Tank firms that store imported petroleum products dot Apapa, making life miserable for residents and businesses.
Accordingly, the ports have lost considerable ground to their West African competitors. Since 2013, the Lome Port in Togo has been increasing its capacity, while Nigerian ports lost 30 per cent of trade, said Dynamar, a Rotterdam-based industry consultancy.
Plainly, the chaos threatens the economy. A 2019 study by the Organised Private Sector noted that the economy was losing N6 trillion annually to the intractable congestion: N3.06 trillion in non-oil income and N2.5 trillion income across all sectors. This is huge. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, estimates that the economy loses N140 billion per week to the gridlock. In 2018, Akinwunmi Ambode, then the Lagos State governor, noted that 12,000 jobs had been lost to the debacle and 200 houses rendered vacant as owners and tenants moved away.
Similarly, the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria raised the alarm in 2018 that the economy was losing N20 billion daily to the gridlock. A study by London-based online resource outfit, MoverDB, noted that shippers incurred the highest cost to transport 20-foot and 40-foot cargoes from New York to Lagos in comparison to 47 other global destinations. For a sputtering economy and a government that is so low in revenues, the gross neglect of Apapa is indefensible.
Additionally, there is no intermodal transport to support port operations. That is the crux of the congestion at the Apapa and Tin Can ports, through which 70 per cent of Nigeria’s maritime trade (as per the NPA statistics) flows. To facilitate its massive operations, Antwerp Port in Belgium, one of Europe’s largest, employs a ‘modal split’ system in which goods are moved by barges 37 per cent; road transport 47 per cent; pipelines 5.0 per cent and rail transport 11 per cent, states the World Economic Forum. The average waiting time at the German Port of Bremerhaven is between 45 and 55 hours.
The Maritime Executive Magazine says globally, ports are gateways for 80 per cent of merchandise trade by volume and 70 per cent by value. PwC analysis shows that a 25 per cent improvement in port performance could increase GDP by two per cent. But this country lacks strategic economic planning because of visionless and ignorant leadership. Contrary to Nigeria’s focus on seeing infrastructure development from ethnic prism without even considering the revenue opportunities, China considers port investments from the point of view of the benefits it receives from trade in the national interest. Last year, Chinese authorities again released a guideline to accelerate the building of additional world-class ports by 2025 by listing 19 major tasks.
The Federal Government should quickly develop intermodal transport at the Lagos ports and its other ports in Delta and Rivers states. Investments in rail are seen as a major step towards contributing to improved ports performance. The Buhari regime should encourage massive private investment in rail transport. Operators lament that it currently costs about N500,000 or more to move containers from the ports to different parts of the country. That translates to extra costs for manufacturers and ultimately, consumers.
For exporters, it is a story of misery. Overseas-bound goods are delayed for weeks before reaching the ports. There, they experience another round of bottlenecks, as the clearing process is still manual and laced with corrupt practices. To be fair, the government has made repeated pledges to upgrade this antiquated system. The latest one is a project to procure three scanners for the seaports at a cost of $18.12 million and N3.25 billion. This is a step in the right direction, but there are other inhibitions that need attention.
The reconstruction of the roads in and around Apapa has become haphazard. Since this will enhance government revenues, guaranteed, the projects should be given priority attention.
Decongesting Apapa roads goes beyond the ken of Hadiza Bala-Usman, the managing director of the NPA. The African Development Bank suggests an action plan to address continuing problems of poor customs performance at the ports, improve both the marine and landside access to ports, and plan for new capacity infrastructure. The movement of petroleum products to the upcountry should be by rail and pipeline. For now, an efficient and transparent call-up system, based on first-come first-served, should be rigorously enforced.
