Sanwo-Olu Dares Powerful People Behind Apapa Gridlock

By Ahmed Rahma

The Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has threatened to publicly mention the names of prominent individuals behind the gridlock situation in Apapa and the environs.

According to a statement on Wednesday, the Governor will do anything to fight the people trying to bring back the old situation in Apapa.

“We will not stop at anything to ensure that anybody that tries to retract and take us back to where we are coming from on the gridlock on Apapa; we will do everything that we can to fight those people.

“We will name and shame them, we will bring out their names, be it a corporate organisation, company, police officer; they will go and answer to the citizens of Nigeria and Lagos. We will bring them to the public court for them to see that we are serious,” he said quoted as saying in the statement.

Recall that the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) had Saturday inaugurated a new call-up system designed to permanently address the movement of trailers in and out of the ports, and bring about traffic improvement along the corridor.

However, contrary to expectation on the free flow of traffic following the commencement of the electronic call-up system for port operations, the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway had been on a total lockdown as fuel tankers and containerised vehicles parked indiscriminately along the road.

In the statement, Mr Sanwo-Olu appealed to those who are yet to sign up for the call-up system to urgently do so as his government was determined to bring succour to residents of the state.

“We cannot condone the recklessness and carelessness that our citizens have gone through.

“My appeal is to others who have not signed on to this call-up system that we have embarked upon to do so,” he said.

The Governor was also quoted in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Gboyega Akosile, as saying that the new electronic call-up system would bring lasting solutions to the gridlock on the Apapa corridor.

“What we are seeing is the beginning of the lasting solution we have brought to Apapa. Our appeal is that we are not out of the problem completely yet. Our citizens can now see that a journey that took them three hours can, indeed, take between 15 and 20 minutes to commute.

“We have taken some troublesome people that are benefiting from the gridlock out of the way. Whatever they were earning illegally has been taken away from them.

“We know they will want to attempt to fight back. We will not stop at anything to ensure that anybody that tries to retract the progress or wants to take us back to gridlock in Apapa will be fought against,” he said.