THE UNTOLD STORY OF APAPA The home of a million trucks, tankers, trailers and containers
TELIAT ABIODUN SULE Senior Research Analyst Phone: 0809 871 0024 Email: teliat.sule@businessdayonline.com
BUSINESSDAY RESEARCH BRIEF
Apapa is Nigeria's most important sea port by virtue of three factors. First, the port is located in Lagos, Nigeria's largest and Africa's fth largest economy, with gross domestic product (SGDP) estimated at about $34 billion. Second, the South-West region of the country, where Lagos is located, is the industrial hub of Nigeria. This means that manufacturers will require, at different times, raw materials of various forms, semi-processed goods, and heavy machinery for their productive activities. Third, the strategic location of Lagos gives manufacturers unfettered access to markets in Nigeria and the West African sub region, where close to 340 million people currently live. With a rail system that is just being resuscitated, the imported goods are hauled to different warehouses within Lagos and to other industrial hubs in other regions in the country mostly by land. To effectively do this, three major categories of vehicles are used which are the light, medium and heavy duty vehicles. With millions of tonnes of goods to be hauled, Apapa receives thousands of heavy vehicular movements daily. We adopted direct observation method and interviews to gather information for this report. We also analysed secondary data where necessary. Our ndings show that petroleum products are hauled using four different modes of distribution which are selfcollection, local supply, south west local and bridging, and different rates apply with bridging rates the highest in the industry. Haulage players prefer Mack, MAN Diesel, Iveco and Sinotrucks over other brands of heavy duty trucks due to affordable maintenance fee, availability of engineers and spare parts, and durability. Trafc inward and out of Apapa is very heavy from Wednesday to Friday. Furthermore, without addressing the issues of parking spaces for trucks, as well as the adoption of truck call-up system, Apapa gridlock may not end anytime soon.