Apapa Seaport Road….

When we make calls for for the restructuring of Nigerian’s political space, we do so because we strongly believe that it will enable the expansion and growth of the socio-cultural and economic space. This will in turn help the country to offer maximally, its huge potential for the benefits of its people, to explore without hindrance and exploit productively within the ambit of the rules and regulations of a free market economy.

We make such calls, and will continue to insist on restructuring because we are convinced that most of the agitations and crises thawing at the very base of the corporate existence of this country are rooted in who gets what, when and how. Basically, it is about a very restrictive economic space that tend to keep many out in the cold.Those shut out have no other option that to agitate against the state. These overlapping faultlines were allowed to degenerate to what we have today.

The Apapa Seaport Road will be shut for 12 months. In the last two weeks, going into Apapa has become a nightmare. And with this development, the entire country is feeling the heat, the economy is suffering, and the people whose daily livelihoods depend on daily movements in and around the port area are also suffering.It will take over N4 Billion to fix. It has been in a mess for as long as I can remember……

Why would an importer in Aba transport his container from Lagos to Aba damaging the fragile road network, instead of 40 minutes from Onne Port? What incentives are there to make customers patronise seaports closer to their base and help to decongest Apapa and make service delivery more efficient?

Why should every tanker in Nigeria come all the way to Apapa to lift fuel, thereby putting the entire city on a standstill for days, when Warri, Port Harcourt and Calabar could also house similar facilities?

Is it not shameful that a country of 180 million human beings with a vast coastline of 853km and about 200 nautical miles of Exclusive Economic Zone will have just two ‘functional’ seaports located within same area instead of ensuring the other four seaports are as viable as the first two?

Yet there are countries with less than 30 million people but with over five very active seaports and each has traffic that far exceed what we record in Nigeria for an entire year.

There are those who think opening up other seaports or maritime zones will be detrimental to Lagos. They suffer from economic myopia. Lagos is building another seaport at Lekki and planning for another at Badagry, even at full capacity, the two new seaports will not reduce traffic at Apapa. Restrictive economic policies restrict economic activities,expansive and open economic policies open up more opportunities to accommodate more participants.

They have not thought about the businesses that Lagos is losing because of congestion.They have not thought of big international conferences that Lagos wont be able to host because participants take free flow of traffic into consideration. They have not thought of the cost of inadequate infrastructure due to population explosion.Lagos has become a victim of its own successes. Decongesting it by creating satellite towns in places like Sagamu and Ogere will be to its advantage.

Lagosians spend an average of four hours everyday in traffic. The economic cost of this is huge.The health implications cannot be quantified in monetary terms. Lagosians have far higher stress levels than other Nigerians, this negatively affects the quality of their health, and by extension, output.

Our mental outputs have been so dangerously and restrictively conditioned by the constraining environment we find ourselves that most of ideas we come up with are at best ridiculous.

It is only in Nigeria that people claim that truck owners are sabotaging railway projects, as if the countries with world class rail systems do not have trucks still ferrying goods.

It is only in Nigeria that people claim that bus owners are sabotaging airlines, that is why we dont have a viable aviation sector as if there are no buses in those countries with viable domestic aviation sectors.

When we call for restructuring, we are not only calling for the weakening of the centre and devolving power to the federating units. We are calling for the expansion of the economic space, to enable the federating units dream beyond the present constraining environment and be all they can be in a healthy competitive manner.

Restructure Nigeria to save Nigeria!