Steve Agbota, [email protected]
With a coastline of 852 kilometres, a maritime area of over 46,000 km2, 200 nautical miles of Exclusive Economic Zone, 30,000 kilometres of waterways, comprising of 50 rivers, Nigeria no doubt can be a country to reckon in the maritime space.
Unfortunately, in 59 years of political independence, the sector is still struggling, despite the country’s enormous maritime potential.
Nigeria’s six ports spread across the country control 70 per cent of cargo traffic of West and Central Africa and going by the latest data of traffic of ships into Nigeria at over 5,307 per annum, the sector is still operating under the 1962 old model, which is far behind what is obtainable in other developed nations.
Having identified the potential of its maritime economy, the Federal Government established the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) by Ports Acts (Cap 155 LFN 1954) in the 1950s to create a structural framework for the management and regulation of the ports operations.
The Authority executed its first Wharf extension project between 1956 and 1961 in Lagos and Port Harcourt ports. Further extension of Lagos ports were carried out between 1970 and 1975 and in 1977, when the Tin Can Island Port Complex was inaugurated to ease the pressure of heavy imports comprising mostly government cargoes on Apapa port.
Between 1979, 1981and 1985, 1982 and 1996, other Eastern ports like Warri, Calabar, new Sapele port and Onne port were constructed and created.
Over these years, maritime sector contributed significantly to the nation’s development in the area of employment generation and economic growth.
Regrettably the sector like others has been bedevilled by many challenges that appear quite difficult as a result of corruption and policy inconsistencies.
But in order to make the industry efficient and competitive, past and present governments have carried out different port reforms, most of which worked while some failed woefully.
Part of the port reforms, came in 2006, when the ports were concessioned to private operators.
However these various reforms have failed to alleviate the challenges facing facing the industry which include poor and dilapidated infrastructure like roads, scanners, railway, holding bay, quay, equipment, delayed cargo clearance to mention few.
Today, all major roads linking the port cities across the country are in bad shapes creating some inexplicable gridlock particularly against which , Nigeria has been delisted from transit nations having been replaced by Ghana and Burkina Faso.
At 59, Nigeria is also missing in the global maritime space.
The absence of a Nigerian shipping company in the container shipping business is chiefly attributable to the absence of government support and a harsh operating environment.
Stakeholders who spoke with Daily Sun said that it is difficult to consider a country as a maritime nation when none of its shipping companies plays in the global arena or in container shipping that is responsible for more than 60 per cent of the seaborne trade.
According to them, Nigerian shipping companies are so feeble that they cannot even compete in their own coastal waters. Currently about 90 per cent of Nigerian shipping companies have been liquidated and those that are still in business are struggling to survive because they lack the capacity to compete. They however advised that Nigeria should adopt the Ghana and Togo ports operating system.
Nigeria does about 2.2 million barrel of crude oil per day, exporting gas NLG, LPG and other petroleum products and non-oil export products but no indigenous ship is involved in the carriage of these products. The situation is so bad that the country is said to be losing $9.1 billion yearly in freight revenue that would have accrued to its treasury. This amount is being lost to foreign ships.
Speaking with Daily Sun, a Customs broker and chieftain of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Joe Sanni, said that at 59, it is sad that even countries that met Nigeria 10 years after after its independence are now far better.
He lamented there has not been any sign of seriousness on the part of successive governments because by now, Nigeria should have forgotten about building infrastructure and all that.
He added: “We tell ourselves lies so much and because there is so much illiteracy and hunger in the land nobody has been able to hold governments accountable for their actions and policies.
There is too much of desperation to survive and because of that nobody talks about how you grow the economy and all that”.
According to him, the maritime sector has capacity to do better if the government is focused and knows what it doing.
He explained: “We can get almost double what we are generating from duties now if we are able to put our house together in the ports particularly having an automated process where cargo does not take too much time to be cleared out of the ports.
“Then, we now look at the infrastructure, the roads and power. If we can get these two things going and build the capacity of Customs and other agencies that operate within the ports especially to work in synergy with each other, we can double what we are making from Customs duty, by blocking leakages and those money going into private pockets can be channeled back to government.”
National President of National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents (NCMDCLA), Lucky Amiwero, for his part said that the maritime sector has contributed to the nation economy tremendously in the last decade, but regretted that the contribution has dwindled seriously due to lack of vision, maladministration, political intrigues , regional interest and lack of professionalism.
He added: “In the last decade within the maritime sector, we have been struggling and it has not been easy because a lot of things are not going well. The maritime sector harbours the Customs, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), NIMASA, Inland Waterways, the Nigerian Shipping Council, Terminals and other things we have in the port today.
“And within a past few years, we have been experiencing some hiccups and setbacks as a result of implementations that have been done. Before 2006, the port was going through difficulties and that was a reform. Two packaged reforms within the port system, which was certainly centred. One of the reforms was the reform of the port when concession was made, the other reform that actually brought about changes in the industry was the reform of destination inspection and the port process.”
He said then, they are trying to simplify the reform by looking at scanners, bringing in IT system to really operate and that is what brings the different in the port. He said but now Nigeria has lost those achievements because there are no functional scanners in the port again.