By Steve Agbota
Due to absence of national fleet, Nigeria has lost over $45 billion as freight charges to foreign ship owners in five years.
Delivering a keynote address at the pubic presentation of the book by Dr. Edmund Chilaka entitled: “The Rise, Fall and Liquidation of Africa’s Pioneer Carriers: Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) and Black Star Line,” the Executive Secretary/CEO of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Hassan Bello, said that it is quite embarrassing that a coastal nation like Nigeria with abundant natural resources conceded the transportation of its export and import cargoes to foreign carriers thereby denying the country the huge economic gains derived from maritime business.
Bello who was represented by Deputy Director Consumer Affairs Department, Akujubi Celestine, lamented that the huge money was paid as freight for dry and wet cargo to foreign ship owners by Nigerians between 2015 and 2019 alone, which is an average of more than $8 billion annual losses.
“According to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) statistics, between 2015 and 2019, a total of 26, 147 vessels berthed at the Nigerian ports with dry cargo throughput of 372,000,000 metric tonnes and total wet cargo throughput of 613,000,000 metric tonnes.