- By Godfrey Bivbere
Following the failed Coconut/ Mile2 portion of the road leading to and from the Apapa ports, stakeholders are taxing themselves in an effort to carry out palliative work on the road.Vanguard Maritime Report gathered that the stakeholders are levying themselves between N50,000 and N200,000 to get hardcore stone to fill the failed portion of the road, especially the Berger Yard end of the road that has become unmotorable.
A failed section of the road at Berger Cement Recall that the same effort was used for fix the Cocoanut to Warehouse bus stops which is now motorable.
Confirming this to Vanguard Maritime Report, President of the United Berger Auto Dealers Association, UBADA, Metche Nnadiekwe, said that all the stakeholders along the Berger route have made their contribution and the work would soon commence.
When Vanguard Maritime Report visited last week heaps of hardcore stones have been dropped on the bad spot of the road.
According to Nnadiekwe, the self help effort “is ongoing because at a point we look abandoned and the stakeholders on the road who are doing business in this place both the Park, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, so many of them came together and said we cannot be waiting for government.
“Let us do something to make the place motorable and before the government will come in by buying hardcore stones. All is ongoing and I thank God for that idea which we are part of. So honestly, if you go out there you will see work is going on so that the place can be motorable otherwise the business from here to coconut is dead.
“I know it will always affect you too the Vanguard people because you people will have to have good road for people to come to transact business otherwise they go to patronise other media houses.”
He also disclosed that they would soon commence cleaning the gutters in front of the business premises to enable water flow easily when it rains.
“We are clearing all these things any moment from now, the whole of this place, because we are making contributions towards that. We don’t have to wait for government to come and do everything for us”, he noted.
Similarly, Port Manager of Tin-can Island Port, Engr. Emmanuel Akporherhe, also told Vanguard Maritime Report that tank farms operators and the concessionaires are also involved in the self help effort.
In his words, “The stakeholders, from the tank farms operators to the concessionaires and I even learnt that Dangote is also doing palliative at the Tin-can axes. “So it is when the road is manageably okay that we are going to effectively move into the call up system that will lead to effective decongestion of the road”.
Recall the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, recently disclosed that the federal government has approved N72 billion for the reconstruction of the road.
