#AutoReportTours: A Review of the Apapa-Wharf Road Construction

For those who are familiar with Apapa, Apapa used to be called The Golden Council around 1999-2005 thereby and what makes it be golden is because of its uniqueness, Apapa is always neat. For kids who grow up attending schools around this vicinity, you will recall days of Anglican Primary School student also called Isoko school, St. Theresa all in Marine Beach and also you have the likes of Apapa High School, Randle Secondary School both in Airways Bus stop at Pelewura Crescent, school used to be fun then as you will get home on time but it is no longer the same place it used to be, to some it is due to the industrialization of the area and also because of its proximity to the nation’s busiest seaport.

Ever since things have changed and we have a large influx of people in the state, Apapa has become a no-go area, its roads can best be described as death trap as motorists spend hours in a trip that is less than 20mins. Due to the menace of the road, the Federal Government and some private organizations of which Dangote Group and Flour Mills Nigeria PLC speared entered into an agreement to repair the road and make the road motorable but with an agreement that they have some tax relief. The MoU was signed and work began.

AutoReportNG was in Apapa earlier in the day to access the work being done and also to see things from our lens.

In The Beginning
We observed the construction starts from the mouth of the bridge at Leventis, we realized that right from Leventis up to the Police Station at Barrack Bus Stop, the work has been completed at least if are to rate them, we will give them 65%, but from the roundabout at Barracks Bus Stop there was a ditch there, we guess they are trying to redirect the drainage due to the multiple sources to form a union, we are not too sure but that’s our assumption. Also, we noticed that most of the constructed roads from Leventis almost towards Airways Bus Stop are yet to be fine-tuned, what this means is that they are not likely to be motorable soon as we noticed there are some cracks on some of the pavements already. We can assume that Leventis to Airways is completed at least 65%. But from Airways towards Eleganza, it is another ball game as the workers were busy dredging and trying to work on the drainages, the sand filling as shown in the pictures.

Commendation
We felt it is worthy to say a big thank you to the military personnel we understand it is a joint effort and this includes men from Navy, the soldiers, The Federal Road Safety Corps, The Nigerian Police and also the LASTMA, they did an excellent work in making sure the road is moving. Controlling the tanker drivers can be stressful as they seem not to fear anyone even if you are armed but these men even in the sun make sure the road is accessible, most especially from Ijora Olopa to the Apapa Bridge, Marine Beach all the way to Barracks Bus stop. God bless you all.

Observation
During our tour, we observed that the company handling the work, AG Dangote is digging more that it can do, we are approaching the rainy season and if the rain should start suddenly, Apapa won’t remain the same again. We will want to advise the company to either speed up or stay within the limit they know they can cover. Also, we noticed that from Airways towards the end, its a no go area as the tankers have blocked this side, the only way is through Caulcrick Road which at times can frustrating due to the bad roads at Airways.

Challenges
Due to the heavy presence of the military, we can’t take as many pictures as we want, we all know the soldiers hate pictures and you taking pictures around them is more like you are signing your death warrant even if what you are doing is legal, they just hate pictures so we can’t take pictures at area we see them, bear with us, we are Nigerians as you.

Recommendation
We will love to recommend that safety signs should be deployed within these areas, there are some new people who are not familiar with this area so they might get confused or have a near accident if they were not told or no sign to warn them of the construction going on in this area.

– AutoReportNG