More than half of the trucks plying Apapa are owned by Dangote Group and Flour Mills Nigeria PLC.
Spokesman of the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Mr. Bolaji Akinola, who disclosed this in Lagos, yesterday, said the two organisations use trucks to evacuate their products from their factories located in Apapa.
According to him, “Little attention has been paid to the volume of trucks that call at Dangote Sugar factory and Flour Mills Nigeria. Both factories are located inside the Lagos Port Complex Apapa. Their operation has nothing to do with the port. They’re strictly production concerns.
“No fewer than 300 Dangote trucks are required to move its sugar from the Dangote Sugar factory while about 400 trucks are needed by Flour Mills to move its products to the market on daily basis.”
Akinola said in addition to the two companies, Honeywell Flour Mills and BUA Sugar Refinery, both located within the Tin Can Island Port Complex, also attract a large number of trucks to Apapa and its environs.
He said Honeywell, with a daily production capacity of about 2,000 tonnes, also requires 200 trucks to move its products to the market daily while BUA’s over 500-tonne daily output requires more than 50 trucks daily to move finished products to the market.
Akinola said: “Everyday, more than 3,000 tankers are required to lift petroleum products from the numerous tank farms in Apapa. How about suspending the operations of these tank farms until they’re able to move products out of Apapa by rail and barges?”
The STOAN spokesman also said the multi-security task force, Operation Restore Sanity in Lagos, set up by the federal and Lagos State governments to address the Apapa gridlock will not be able to achieve its mandate until certain fundamental issues that gave rise to the gridlock are addressed.
