Some residents of Port
Harcourt City have expressed concern over traffic obstructions by petrol tanker drivers who load products from Eagle Island tank farm in the city.
Some of the residents who spoke to The Tide on the development condemned the hardship being suffered by motorists and pedestrians especially on Ikwerre Road and UTC Junction axis of the Nnamdi Azikwe Road to the Isaac Boro Park fly over.
Chidi Amadi, a bus driver, said each time the tankers come to load from the petrol tank farm at Eagle Island, they block Ikwerre Road from Education Bus Stop to the tank farm near Port Harcourt wharf and stretch to UTC axis to the Mile I flyover.”
Amadi lamented that the tanker drivers were always reckless in their use of the road and called  on the government to check such unruly usage of public roads.
Another respondent, Chief Christopher White also expressed disappointment at the danger caused on the road each time the petrol trucks come to load products from the farm.
“I know that petrol is very important to all but there ought to be order and decency in the way and manner businesses should be run in the society”, he said and appealed to the authorities of the tank farm and the Rivers State Government to check the situation.
“They drive against traffic and scale the safety demarcation between the road lanes causing damages on the road and putting lives of other road users in danger”, said Chukwuemeka, a trader at Education Bus Stop.
Mr Austine Jacob, another taxi driver who plies Mile I to RSUST also condemned the attitude of the tanker drivers. “Are they above the law? he queried.
They threaten everybody with their trucks and park wherever they choose to park even in the middle of the road as if the road is their private property and other people do not matter. They cause hold-up and frustrate movement.”
He expressed surprise that the Rivers State Government has kept mute over the incursion and appealed for government’s intervention.
In a similar development, the Senior Staff Association of Communication, Transport and Corporation (SSACTAC), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) branch has called on the federal and Lagos State Governments to ban the movement of petroleum products-laden trucks and container trucks from street and residential areas in Lagos.
The association’s secretary, Comrade Akin Leosho, said activities of the tanker drivers on the Apapa-Oshodi express way had become a major headache to road users.
He urged government to stop construction of warehouses and conversion of existing structures into warehouses within streets and around residential areas and expressed disappointment that it is only in Nigeria that trailers laden with containers as well as petroleum trucks enter the streets.
He said even America which has higher number of articulated trucks engaging in petroleum products distribution than Nigeria yet they are not usually notices on the roads.
“You hardly see them because they are restricted, they carry the cargoes more at night. Secondly, their roads are very good and trailers don’t ply major highways, they have their own route, but in Nigeria everything goes”, he said.
The  SSACTAC secretary called on government to fast-track the construction of pipelines to ensure proper movement and distribution of petroleum products in the country.

Chris Oluoh