Apapa, Tin Can Ports  over stretched – CIoTA

Abiola Seun    |     

The Chartered Institute of Transport Administration (CIoTA), has said that the Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports have overstretched the capacity it is designed to handle.

This was disclosed in a chat with journalists, by the President of the institute, Bashir Jamoh in Lagos last week.

Jamoh who also doubles as the Executive Director, Finance of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety  Agency (NIMASA) said both ports have exceeded 80 percent of their capacity.

According to him, that has contributed to the traffic gridlock experienced daily on the roads leading to the seaports.

He said, “The capacity of the Apapa and Tin Can Island port when you look at it at the inception was lower but today, they have exceeded more than 80 percent of the capacity they have and the population is growing.

“In the 70s, we can imagine what Apapa and Tin Can port is and look at the population then and now and we look at the infrastructure at the 70s vis a vis our own seize of economy and what we have today.

Jamoh also advise that since the two major seaports have been overstretched, there is urgent need to enlarge the ports in other to compete with neighbouring countries in the region.

“We need to enlarge the port for us to compete with the global standard in terms of African port and our nearby brothers like Benin republic, Togo because they take most cargoes meant for Nigeria because of the problems of efficiency and effectiveness of our own ports due to the size of the port.

“Also, the issue of concession, those places where trucks are to park have been concessioned  to concessionaires who also on their  own don’t have the exact parking place and when you count the number of trucks coming to Apapa, who are carrying empty containers and export so in so doing we continue to develop issue of gridlock and that is why the institute is advocating intermodal and the issue of whether we have been using trucks and rail tracks from inside ports to take cargoes outside port should be of paramount importance to us and we are ready to provide capacity in terms of policy advisories, human capacity, skill acquisition for our own members.”

The CIoTA boss who encouraged the creation of more deep sea ports in the country for more global competitiveness assured that all Nigerian seaports would be connected by rail.

“President Muhammadu Buhari has said recently that all ports in the country are  connected to the hinterland and the government is thinking of that and I mentioned it earlier that the institute will concentrate on the development of intermodal system for evacuation of cargoes from the seaports where we can be using the sea, rail, air and road and we ensure we make use of pipeline which we are not making good use of in this part of the country

“When we look at our coastal line from Apapa to Badagry, it is very good in developing port and now the deep seaport is coming, though Badagry port has some challenges with NPA but we hope to see the Lekki deep seaport.

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