Why unauthorised persons, groups, besiege ports in Lagos

IT is no longer unusual to see the entrances leading to Apapa and Tin-Can ports in Lagos crowded with young men and women (and some middle-aged) standing in groups, discussing. In some other locations in the port city of Apapa, these unauthorized groups mount road blocks along the ports access roads, imposing an un-receipted payment regime on port users.

Lamenting to the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) recently during a courtesy visit, the Managing Director of Ports and Terminal Multiservices Limited (PTML) in Tin-Can port, Mr. Ascanio Russo, while commending the combined effort of the police and Navy in repelling hoodlums that invaded the Tin Can Island Port in the wake of the EndSARS protest, appealed to the NPA management to check the influx of unauthorized persons loitering around the port area.

The PTML Managing Director said that there is an urgent need to beef up security in the port, especially at this time, to guard against any future attack on the port.

“The situation at Tin Can Island is still very precarious. There are far too many people working around the port and it is not clear what they are doing. We appeal to the NPA to look into this,” the PTML MD had appealed.

Port entrance loiterers

For many of the crowds gathered in front of the port entrances in Lagos, the quest to make quick money is the motivating factor that pushes most of them. While most of them are on the lookout for first time importers who are not familiar with the procedural processes involved in cargo clearance, others simply act as middle men to clearing agents. When Nigerian Tribune approached a young man standing in-front of the Nnewi building, just beside the entrance of the nation’s busiest ports, the Apapa port; he told our correspondent (who pretended to be a first time importer) that he could help clear any container from inside the ports.

According to the young man who identified himself as Fidelis Azubuike, he owns an office inside the Nnewi building and had facilitated many cargoes out of the Apapa port. When our correspondent asked that he would like to know his office, Mr. Fidelis Azubuike said he would need to see the documents of the cargo inside the port including the Bill of Lading before taking our correspondent to his office. When the Tribune reporter told him that the documents were still at home, he said whenever the documents were available; they could then go to his office.

For many like Azubuike who hang around the port entrances and surroundings, working as a middle man in the cargo clearance transaction chain is a way of making ends meet. The so-called office inside the Nnwei building obviously does not belong to him. Why he won’t move an inch until he sees the documents is because the real clearing agent (Freight Forwarder) who owns the office inside Nnewi building will only listen to discussions if he, Azubuike, presents a bill of lading document.

For this category of loiterers, while some indeed act as middle men for first time importers, others end up duping unsuspecting first time cargo owners. In the words of a business woman, Alhaja Omikunle who deals in the sale of imported baby diapers, “I lost over a million Naira when a boy in my neighbourhood introduced me to somebody that he claimed to be a true clearing agent at the Apapa ports.

“It was when I just wanted to venture into imported baby diapers because I have a sibling abroad who was willing to assist in sending them here. I had never been to the Lagos ports and didn’t know anybody around there. While asking people to link me to anybody that does business at the ports, a boy in my neighbourhood claimed he had a cousin who works at the port as a freight forwarder. After speaking on phone, the supposed freight forwarder came to my house, collected all relevant documents and the sum of N700,000 to start work.

“After about a week, he requested for another N500,000, claiming that he has issues with Customs officers at the ports. When I waited for two weeks and didn’t hear from him, I had to arrest the person that introduced him to me. It was in the course of investigation that it was discovered that he never opened any cargo clearance transaction for me at the ports. He simply took my documents, probably threw them away, and disappeared into thin air with my money.”

Unreceipted road taxes

Another category of unauthorized persons that besiege the port surroundings are those that mount illegal road blocks on the ports access roads. While some of these road blocks are mounted during the day, many spring up in the dead of the night.

A major road block that comes up during the day is located at the Warehouse/Creek road junction in Apapa. For many owners of Roll-On-Roll-Off cargoes (vehicles), collection of N500 for SUVs, jeeps and N300 for cars without any evidence of payment happens at the point. Refusal to pay attracts the vehicle side mirror getting broken or damaged.

When confronted with the allegation that imported vehicles pay the mandatory Wharf Landing fee without evidence of payment at this junction, spokesman of the Lagos State Wharf Landing Fee Collecting Authority, Mr. Michael Oputeh, explained that the group that collects such fees without issuance of receipt doesn’t work with the authority.

In the words of Michael Oputeh, “Yes, we have received complaints of some boys standing along the rear end of the Liverpool Bridge along the Creek Road, demanding for money from imported vehicle owners. These boys wield big sticks and are dressed in mufti, so they cannot be working for us.

‘Our staff always wear our uniform and won’t wield sticks on port users. We don’t employ touts to work at the authority, the least qualification of our workers are school certificate holders. We have graduates on our nominal role, so definitely those groups are not working with us. When we tried to find out who these boys are, they told us that they work with the Apapa Local Government, so you see that they are not our workers.”

While many imported vehicles owners are subjected to un-receipted payments along the ports access roads during the day, truck owners dole out huge sums of money in the dead of the night just to pass through illegal security checkpoints and access the port gate. For many of these illegal security checkpoints, they thrive in the dead of the night and disappear at dawn.

In the words of the Managing Director of Inland Containers Nigeria Ltd. (ICNL), Mr. Ismail Yusuf, “Some of my trucks that come to the Lagos ports from Kano and Kaduna spend about two weeks before they are able to enter inside the ports. This is despite paying through different road blocks and checkpoints along the ports access roads to get to the port gate. At times, things become more difficult when these trucks are turned back at the port gate by security officials. In such cases, after paying through several checkpoints and road blocks along the ports access roads, if a truck gets to the port gate and gets turned back, it starts all over again because all the payment made at those various checkpoints are not receipted. So, at times, a truck can pay road blocks and checkpoints twice on just one trip because security officials at the port gate turned the truck back due to reasons best known to them.

“This money paid to the various roads blocks and checkpoints along the ports access roads are not fixed or receipted. Depending on the drivers of the trucks, this payment ranges between N50,000 to N100,000. Some drivers know how to maneuver their way through these checkpoints and road blocks. All we know is that these payments are not fixed and no receipts are issued after they are made. If government can enforce an electronic call-up regime at the ports, the issue of illegal road blocks and checkpoints will become history because there won’t be any need for any truck driver to want to jump the queue.”

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