BOS: Rail, Apapa, and Okada

Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports

Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu (BOS) of Lagos State sounded hesitant and hesitant when he discussed the at-the-time horrifying Apapa traffic gridlock that had up until that point defied all attempts at an effective solution. This was at the formal handing over of three new improved traffic-prone junctions along the Lagos-Expressway more than a year ago. “What we are seeing is the beginning of the lasting answer we have delivered to Apapa,” he said at the time. We argue that the problem is not yet solved. Our citizens can now understand that a three-hour journey can actually be completed in between 15 and 20 minutes when commuting. Now that we are all working together, everyone can see that we can actually resolve our internal issues. We have moved some troublemakers who were gaining from the traffic jam. We anticipate that they’ll try to retaliate. We will stop at nothing to ensure that anyone attempting to undo the progress or attempting to return us to the Apapa bottleneck will be resisted.

BOS sounded more assured, upbeat, and optimistic when responding to a question from Seun Okinbaloye in a recent interview on Channels Television. He gushed about his administration’s success in resolving one of the most infamous and intractable neighborhood traffic, environmental, public health, and urban planning issues in Lagos State. “I am staring straight into the camera and I can openly announce that I have fixed Apapa bottleneck,” the governor said on that program. NPA has sent letters of praise our way. The majority of Apapa’s main companies have all submitted letters. I receive daily video updates of events in Apapa. I received one today, and I am confident that I will receive more between seven and nine in the morning and between one and three in the afternoon every day. In any case, I had avoided the region like the plague for years because I had personally experienced the horrific Apapa traffic jam for hours on end several times. However, thorough investigations showed that the governor is correct and that sanity has been restored on the highways in vast areas, especially the approaches to the ports.

As soon as he took office, BOS contacted the Federal Government to request that the Presidential Task Force on Apapa Gridlock, which had been established to find a long-term solution to the ongoing issue, be disbanded. The state government subsequently established a Special Traffic Management Team to assume control of the task of bringing Apapa back to normal. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the Federal Ministry of Transportation, maritime operators, seaport unions, and security agencies were all involved in the success that his administration has so far achieved on the issue. BOS is sincere and modest enough to readily acknowledge this. The introduction by the NPA of its Electronic Truck Call-Up system, run by Truck Transit Park Limited (TTP), which has largely eliminated manual management of truck movement and access to and from the Lagos ports by using technology to reduce traffic gridlock in the axis, was a crucial element in this collaborative effort at finding solutions.

“Before now, for you to move a truck during the TTP time people pay as much as N150,000 to N200,000 to move a truck from Ijora-Olopa to Apapa Port because it was based on manual operations and anything that is manual has human interference,” said Mr. Oluwatoyin Fayinka, Special Adviser to the Governor on Transportation and Chairman of Apapa Traffic Management and Enforcement Committee, in a recent interview. According to a representative of the organization in charge of running the Electronic Truck Call-Up system, depending on where the importers’ warehouses are located, the cost of transporting containers from Apapa Port to warehouses has significantly decreased by over 62.5%. Has the Apapa traffic jam, however, been entirely resolved? BOS doesn’t make this claim. “What used to take two hours, three hours, now takes 15 to 20 minutes,” he said to Okinbaloye. What remains of the issue, though? The Federal Government is taking the route in MTN starting at Mile 2’s end and traveling in the direction of Apapa. That is the part that needs to be finished. It’s a distance that I estimate to be under a kilometer. For you to have a total cleanup of it, that stretch must be finished.

The program has generally been successful, but BOS also pointed out that there are still trailers on some of these routes as a result of internal sabotage of the NPA’s Electronic Truck Call-Up system. He claimed that the state government is constructing a trailer park in Orile for the organization to house about 2000 trucks to help the NPA with additional trailer parks to remove trucks from the roads, and that “with an effective call-up system in place, trucks that have not been called up would have no business coming to Apapa.” The governor stated, “There are the minor hiccups we have to resolve with them, but in terms of obstructions to civilians, we have done well.” The accomplishment of the Apapa government is no less significant than Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola’s administration’s well praised triumph in rescuing, modernizing, and transforming Oshodi from the actual urban forest it once was.
Numerous people and businesses that had left the axis will undoubtedly start to return as the BOS administration continues and strengthens its efforts to restore Apapa. In addition, the environment will improve, property values will rise, new businesses will start up, creating jobs and boosting prosperity, and Apapa will once more start to realize its previously untapped economic potentials, benefiting Lagos State and Nigeria. The BOS administration had the chance to assess the effects of the total ban on Okada motorcycle operations in six Local Government Councils and the corresponding nine Local Council Development Areas announced by the governor on May 18, 2022, during a Stakeholders’ Forum with the theme “Okada Ban – What Next” that was organized by the Ministry of Information and Strategy and the Ministry of Transportation. The Lagos State Anti-Okada Squad, working with the police and the military, implemented this ban in response to the riders’ frequent violations of traffic laws, the high rates of injuries and fatalities brought on by motorcycle accidents on highways, and the riders’ pervasive involvement in criminal activity throughout the state.

In the earlier-mentioned Channels Television interview, BOS had commented on the consequences of the Okada ban in the affected districts, saying: “Not only are we seeing a decline in concerns around security, traffic, robberies, and so on, we do not see individuals injured or limbs being cut in hospitals again. These were the items that abruptly put an end to people’s lives. As a result, there have been significant advancements in that area. At its peak, we saw about 550 Okada-related accidents per month in January and February, which is the rate of mortality over the past two months. We have only observed 100 direct accidents from our hospitals as of late. It has decreased dramatically. Traditional leaders, locals, and Community Development Associations were among the attendees at the Stakeholders’ Forum who all agreed that the ban had been successful and useful and pushed for its expansion to other regions of the state.

“The enforcement of the prohibition should be continued to guarantee that the benefits of the ban are not reversed,” read a statement released at the conclusion of the event. Riders who are still observed using prohibited routes, particularly highways, should be detained and made to bear the consequences of their actions. To further increase safety and security in Lagos, the Lagos State Government ought to impose an outright ban on Okada. The government’s decision to expand the prohibition to an additional four Local Government Areas and six Local Development Areas in the State was undoubtedly motivated by public sentiment. This week, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotosho, said in a television interview that the former Okada riders were being encouraged to enroll in one of the 19 Skills Acquisition and Vocational Training Centers located throughout the state to receive training in a variety of trades. Once they have completed their training, they will be empowered and equipped to launch small businesses as part of alternative means of supporting themselves.

As an alternative mode of transportation to Okada, BOS introduced 500 domestically built First and Last Mile seven and eleven-seater buses (FLM) last year for deployment to 286 community routes in the state. The fleet, which includes premium insurance coverage for driver and passenger lives, will eventually grow to 5000 buses. And in compliance with the modal transportation element of its THEMES agenda, the BOS administration has made significant investments in water transportation over the last three years, according to Mr. Abdoulbaq Ladi Balogun, Managing Director of the Lagos State Ferry Services (LAGFERRY). Its initiatives in this area include the acquisition of 15 cutting-edge boats to improve water transportation in the state, bringing the fleet’s total to 20 boats operating daily across 14 routes in all divisions of the state, aggressive dredging of the waterways, removal of wrecks along the coastline, construction and rehabilitation of terminals/jetties to open new areas to water transportation, and investment security and safety equipment through the creation of Real-Ti Of course, there is still much to be done to stop boats from capsize and people from losing their lives on the state’s waterways, so this is still a work in progress.

At the Marina station of the rail project, BOS personally flagged off the placement of the final track beam (T-beam), marking the beginning of the final phase of the trip towards the actualization of the 27km Lagos Blue Line Rail Mass Transit. The Red Line, which the BOS administration started from scratch and will run from Agbado to Lagos Marina, will go online later in the first quarter of next year, the governor said. The Blue Line, which will run from Lagos Marina-Orile Iganmu-Mile 2 – Okokomaiko and ultimately down to Badagry, will begin commercial shuttles in January 2023. The governor added that four new rail lines previously included in the rail master plan that gave rise to the Blue and Rail Lines will soon be the subject of feasibility studies by the state government.

“Asiwaju Tinubu designed seven rail lines for Lagos in 2005, and I was a part of his cabinet as well as a member of the committee that designed it, along with the current governor,” the Commissioner for the Environment stated in a recent contribution on an online site. First, a cabinet delegation was sent to three South American nations. After they returned, we decided, with some modifications, that Lagos needed what they had seen. Our group produced seven rail lines, among which Fashola, his successor, and a team member at the time launched the Blue Line. Sanwo-Olu, another team member, then launched the Red Line. The Green Line runs from Lekki all the way to Epe, where it connects with the Purple Line to reach Ikorodu. Under BOS, Lagos will undoubtedly continue to make steady progress toward her historic goal of becoming a smart, model African megacity.