Petroleum Products Depots Owners Association (PPDOA) has cried out to President Muhammadu Buhari over the Nigerian Ports Authority’s closure of the Waziri Jetty by a strategic point in the distribution of petroleum products in the country, which has strangulated their business operations and threatened the supply of fuel.
Speaking recently, Barrister Tricia Okereke, the executive secretary of PPDOA, raised the alarm when she lamented: “We are calling on President Buhari, Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, and the various heads of the House and Senate committees on Marine Transport and Jetties and the Lagos State governor, Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to come to our aid against the backdrop of this grave injustice being perpetrated against our businesses in outright disregard for the law.”
According to Okereke, it was illegal for the jetty to have been leased to Lead Marketing, a freight company operating at the port, because it denied PPDOA procedural due process of ‘Right of First Refusal.’ She said: “Under the equitable rules of ‘First Right of Refusal’ we plead for the President to approve a grant of 10-year lease of the jetty land in order to give us opportunity for repairs and upgrade of the jetty. Our goal is to install firefighting safety equipment in order to safeguard life and property that have been so callously disregarded.
“We plead that the President, in his estimable role as father of the country, calls the port manager, Apapa Port Complex, Lagos, to order and allow for fair hearing and due process in her dealings with legitimate business operators at the jetty so that they are not frustrated, as she has threatened to do so by applying operational berthing delay measures to counter the fruits of any superior power that attempts to rescue us.
“NPA’s closure of the jetty is egregious and tactless, especially given that this is happening just when the Nigerian Railway Corporation has almost completed the rail tracks that run directly behind our depots to assist in the seamless delivery of petroleum products to the northern region.”