The firm handling the Electronic Call-Up system for trucks at the Lagos Ports, Trucks Transit Parks (TTP) yesterday cried out that some individuals, both outside and in government, who were cashing in from truckers along the port access roads before the implementation of ETO (electronic call-up system) are already fighting back to frustrate the system.
Daily Trust reports that the ETO is a digital platform designed to regulate truck movement in the port corridor with a view to preventing congestion by scheduling and coordinating truck entries and exits.
The system has been introduced in Apapa and also the Lekki-Epe corridor.
Speaking with the executives of the Transportation Correspondents Association of Nigeria (TCAN) in Lagos, the Managing Director of TTP,, Jama Onwubuariri, explained that the ETO app has been upgraded 160 times since inception in 2021.
He said, “After the port concessioning in 2006, a lot of the spaces within the ports that were being used for packing trucks temporarily while they are waiting for their cargo or to drop or to pick up, were now being used for stacking containers.
“Again, like I said, the population has grown, so import and export activities have increased. The spaces that the trucks have used to wait in the ports while they are being serviced are now being used to keep cargoes.
“So because of that, we now had a tailback of the trucks on the ports’ access roads. Now, when you bring in what we typically call the Nigerian factor, some people want to make quick profits out of any negative situation that they see. So you had law enforcement agents, you had private actors getting involved to help drivers to get faster access into the ports.
“Effectively, that led to a sort of cartel that if you do not pay N300,000 or N250,000, your truck will not get into the ports. It was a bit of embarrassment for us as a country.
“There was even a time that the government came up with what they call a presidential task force on Apapa traffic, all geared towards finding a solution.
“But what we told government is, an ad-hoc approach is not going to solve the problem. You need a targeted, long-term, technology-driven solution. So we developed the ETO app as an indigenous application that will deal with both the issue on hand and the invisible Nigerian factor which comes with it.
“So what ETO has done since its introduction in February of 2021 is to assign roles to every stakeholder. Lagos State Government and the Nigerian Ports Authority are to ensure that there is enforcement of the standard operating procedures.”
