- The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), calls on the NNPC to provide alternative loading depots for petroleum tankers.
- The south-west chairman of NUPENG, Tokunbo Korodo, says the constant gridlock along the Apapa road is because 90 per cent of petroleum products are stored in various private tank farms in the area
- The NUPENG chairman advises the NNPC to open depots in other parts of the south-west zone for loading to reduce the tankers coming to Apapa
The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has called the attention of the federal government to the condition of bridges leading to Lagos seaports, which it says may soon collapse.
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The south-west chairman NUPENG, Mr Tokunbo Korodo, therefore called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to provide alternative loading depots for petroleum tankers to avoid the impending disaster.
In a statement made available to NAIJ.com on Monday, July 17, Mr Tokunboattributed the constant gridlock along the Apapa road to the fact that 90 per cent of petroleum products were stored in various private tank farms in the area.
He said: “This is why all the adjourning routes to Apapa always experience traffic jams.
“The tanker drivers are always on queue waiting for their time to load the petroleum products stored in various tanks farms in Apapa.
“At present, Tin-Can Island-link road is not passable to the depots; the Ijora-Wharf Road is in deplorable conditions due to several pot-holes there.
“The tanker drivers have been on queue for days, obstructing free flow of traffic.
“It is dangerous to have trailers stationary on those bridges for days, it could lead to collapse of the bridges.
“The tanker drivers should not be held responsible for parking their trucks on the bridges along the route leading to the depots.
“This is because there are no alternative routes to the depots for now.”
He said the gridlock on the route would become hectic when repair works begin on the Apapa-Tin Can road and urged the government to provide an alternate route to avert such chaos.
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The union chairman advised the NNPC to open depot in other parts of the south-west zone for loading to reduce the tankers coming to Apapa.
“The corporation should begin to use its System 2B Pipeline Network, to pump petroleum products from Atlas Cove Depot to other depots in the southwestern part of the country.
“Now that the depots are in good shape, there is no reason why the corporation should still be using private depots in Apapa to distribute petroleum products,” he said.
According to him, only Mosinmi Depot is into skeletal loading while Ejigbo depot in Lagos state; Ibadan depot in Oyo state, Ore depot in Ondo state and Ilorin depot in Kwara are not working.
Meanwhile, the federal government has concluded plans to borrow $6.1 billion from Chinese Exim Bank to complete all rail projects in the country by 2019.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, disclosed this on Monday March 27 in Abuja.
Premium Times reports that in a statement issued by Yetunde Sonaike, the Ministry’s Director of Public Relations, Mr Amaechi was said to have made this known during the Ministry’s 2017 budget proposal defence at the National Assembly in Abuja.
In the video below, NAIJ.com TV asked some people in Lagos if they preferred to live on Mainland or the Island?