Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has called for the enforcement of traffic laws to tackle the gridlocks caused by indiscriminate parking of trucks on roads in Apapa axis of Lagos.

The minister said this on Monday during an inspection tour of the ongoing Apapa-Oshodi-Ojota-Oworonshoki expressway reconstruction project in Lagos.

He called for inter-agency collaboration to resolve the challenges as well as adequate enforcement of traffic laws to remove the obstructing trucks on the highways.

“We provided a truck park so that people can get off the road. So, this is now calling for only one thing, enforcement.

“It’s a multi-level problem also. Government has to enforce the law, I have to enforce the law. We all have different levels of enforcement.

“Traffic enforcement is FRSC, truck management is Ministry of Transport. We just need to come together and find an answer; street hawking is local government, road traffic law is state government, we just have to work together, this can’t continue this way,” he said.

Mr Fashola also said that port concession agreement and lack of loading bays was worsening Apapa gridlocks, urging that other ports be made viable to decongest the over-stretched Lagos ports.

He said the Apapa port was overwhelmed and overstretched by cargo and there was need to make other ports attractive through incentives for people to use them.

The minister expressed optimism that the ongoing Lekki Deep Sea Port project would decongest Apapa Ports when completed.

He said the ministry had constructed a road in Calabar Port, Cross River state, to address the problem of headroom to make it attractive to businesses.

(NAN)