ANLCA Seeks Relocation Of Fuel Depots From Lagos Ports

President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Alhaji Olayiwola Shittu, warned in Abuja on Sunday that continued operation of petroleum products depots at the Lagos ports and from densely populated areas constituted grave dangers.

Shittu said at a news forum that if there were a fire outbreak at the ports or at the densely populated Ejigbo area of Lagos, where the NNPC’s depot was located, there would be dire consequences.

“I bet you, we are sitting on keg of gunpowder in Lagos now. If any of those terminals blow, half of Lagos will sink because those types of depots should not even be put either near the ports or where the population stays, but people approved it.

“The cost of relocating is the cost of building; so, it’s difficult, you call them to relocate; they say where is the money?

“Government cannot relocate on their behalf because government is looking for money. The best bet to even decongest the roads where the tankers are clogging is for government to close its eyes and pipe those depots, that is supply from that depot through pipe and take them out of the city. That is what is done elsewhere.”

Shittu decried a situation where there were up to 18 port terminals in Lagos which ought to have only three to create room for their expansion as well as better management.

He also lamented that government did not heed the advice that not all the port terminals should be concessioned to private operators during the privatisation drive, but to allow the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) to retain some.

“When privatisation was going on in the country, we warned; we warned seriously that no country in the world will just gather all its terminals and give out to private entities.

“You discovered that in Lagos alone, we have about 18 terminals which in modern society should not even be more than three terminals in order to be properly managed; in order for them to be able to do aggressive expansion as the case may be.

“We have suggested that NPA should be allowed to retain one of those ports and allow NPA to do what is called commercial charging,” he said.

The ANLCA president said that the existing terminals had their challenges and difficulties including space, as they could not expand into the sea, at any rate.

He said that a terminal that should not handle more than 5,000 containers now handled more than 15,000 containers, making ports operations Herculean.