LAGOS PORTS CONGESTION: ONUESOKE CALLS FOR DECENTRALIZATION

Sunny Onuesoke

The congestion presently being experienced at the Lagos Ports, has been condemned by one of the country's most vibrant personalities; Chief Sunny Onuesoke.


Onuesoke, a prominent chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and also a former governorship aspirant, condemned the congestion in both Apapa and Tin-Can Wharf located in Lagos State.

The former gubernatorial aspirant in Delta state who disclosed that he was trapped in traffic gridlock for over four hours while going to Apapa Wharf to transact business, told Journalists in Lagos that the only solution to the problem, is to open up other sea ports in the Southeast- and South-South parts of Nigeria.

Onuesoke, while lamenting the state of the dilapidated roads to the two seaports, wondered why roads leading to the only Nigerian operating ports that is generating about fifty percent of the nation’s revenue should be abandoned to the extent that, it is difficult for trucks conveying cargoes to access.

The PDP strongman observed Nigeria must losing both man hours and millions of Naira daily as a result of traffic gridlock on the road leading to the ports and congestion in the ports.

"This situation", according to Onuesoke, "portends grave danger for the Nigerian economy, as it will trigger inflation and further discourage importers from choosing Nigeria as the port of destination".

Apart from construction of the access roads to the ports, Onuesoke advised that Government should, as a matter of urgency, deploy traffic and security personnel in a large number to Apapa to ensure a free flow of traffic on the road to the port, stressing that the traffic officials should work in shifts so that they can have twenty hours a day presence on the road.

He argued that the main reason why the port in Lagos is congested is because it is the only port serving a country of over 200million people, adding that it is an embarrassing reality that the Federal Government abandoned Onne, Calabar,  Port Harcourt, Warri, Sapele and Koko ports, among other ports  that would have served other  parts of country.

Advising the government to open other ports in the country, Onuesoke stated, “Those who sold the idea to our leaders that the ports in Port Harcourt, Warri, Calabar and Koko among others should be abandoned and focused only on Lagos alone, must have miscalculated".

"I suspected that those ports were abandoned because they wanted to corner all imports into Nigeria to Lagos alone and through it make Lagos indispensable to any economic activity in the country".

"Their plan has worked and has served Lagos state well, but it has strangulated the rest of Nigeria", Onuesoke stated.