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The United Berger Auto Dealers Association, said the number of vehicles sold daily at the auto mart dropped by 95 per cent in the last three years.
Speaking with Daily Sun, President of the Association, Metche Nnadiekwe, said that in over three years ago, the situation has worsened, as dealers who sold used up to 30 vehicles on a daily basis hardly record two to three sales a day at present.
He attributed the drop in sales to the gridlock caused by indiscriminate trailers parking on the bridges around the market and truck drivers blocking entrances to the market in addition to the bad state of the roads to and from the two seaports.
“I have never seen this kind of a thing before. It so disheartening that people with lot of responsibilities with several bills to pay will come here from the 1st to 31st of every month without making any sales and the bills keep on accumulating. Coupled with the trailers and other challenges, it is really embarrassing because this is the largest automobile market in the world, which supposed to be the pride of Lagos state and Nigeria.
“We are contributing a lot here; we are creating employment for Nigerians who are ordinarily supposed to be on the streets for one crime and the other. We are paying our dues. As far as I’m concerned, there are no sales again in this market. It has been God that has been helping us to survive now. God is our only survival. He’s the person that sustaining us,” he lamented.
He said that auto dealers have been suffering here for more than three years despite they pay their taxes and other bills to both the State and Federal Government. He said the market should be a priority to the Government because it generates a lot of revenue for the country. He therefore urged the Federal Government to put more efforts in what they are doing to arrest the situation by fixing the bad roads, building parking lots for trucks so as to reduce the pressure on the roads.
He said government should make other ports in the country to be busy because no matter how they fix the Apapa road and other ports are not working, it will continue to have problems because these are heavy trucks plying the road. Considering the time the trailers hang on the bridges and the road, he said the road would continue to suffer if other ports are not open up for cargo evacuation.
He added: “Because the congestion around the road is something else. The ports are suffering and the roads are also suffering because of the heavy loads. For instance, look at the bridge here; were they built for trailers park? They park permanently here. From here, you can’t drive comfortably to Kirikiri…”
