In an apparent bid to improve operational efficiency in the country’s ports while facilitating efficient maritime trade, the Nigerian Ports Authority recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Port of Antwerp International, one of Europe’s leading ports. The five-year partnership agreement, the NPA management believes, will help in propelling Nigerian ports into playing leading roles in Africa.
Indeed, with ports in Calabar, Warri, Port Harcourt, Onne and the two in Lagos, Nigeria has what it takes to become the shipping hub, not just in West Africa, but in the entire continent. But the lack of fidelity to reform plans and absence of investment in expansion, compounded with corruption, have conspired to render facilities at the ports outdated and the service delivery deficient. The corollary has been that the country’s ports, especially the two leading ones in Apapa and Tin Can Island, have lost their preeminent position as the shipping hub in West Africa to ports in neighbouring countries.
After a raft of reforms, the port in Lome, Togo, is said to have positioned itself as the magnet for ships heading for West Africa because of its greater operational efficiency. The Cotonou port in Benin Republic is not left out. According to reports quoting Dynamar, a Dutch maritime intelligence and consulting firm, container traffic to Lome has grown three-fold in the past five years, evidence that it has positioned itself to reap from the decline in Nigeria. Even goods meant for Nigeria are sometimes routed through the tiny West African countries, depriving Nigeria the needed revenue that would have come in if they had passed through the Nigerian ports.
It has therefore become imperative that urgent actions be taken in the country to get things moving in the right direction. Doing business in Nigerian ports, especially the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports, which are responsible for over 70 per cent of maritime trade in Nigeria, has become a harrowing affair. Due to years of neglect, the two ports have become practically inaccessible, while the other four have been largely sidelined. Businesses located in Apapa are relocating because of the unfriendly operating environment.
Trucks, which have taken over the haulage business from the railways, take up to weeks of twists and turns to get goods meant for export to the ships. Vehicles literally get stuck for days in the gridlock as they approach the ports. If the goods they carry are perishables, they will go to waste before they can get to the ships. “Export warehouses are filled with commodities; instead of being promptly shipped out, they are rotting away,” the President of National Cashew Association of Nigeria, Tola Faseru, once lamented.
For a country aspiring to promote non-oil exports in the face of dwindling oil revenues, this is not good enough; it does not show enough commitment on the part of the government, whose duty it is to maintain the infrastructure around the ports. Even when the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, came up with a series of executive orders, meant to streamline activities at the ports and their environs, nothing much seems to have changed. Tokunbo Kayode, the President of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in August, said, “Cost of doing business has risen by 400 per cent. Port users lose billions daily on charges ….”
With the exception of Onne, which is involved in the export of oil, the other ports have become virtually latent. This has fuelled the call for the privatisation of the ports, in line with the current practice around the world. The MoU, for now, appears to be a timely intervention to arrest the drift. The PAI in Belgium is the second largest port in Europe and handles an annual amount of 210 tonnes of international maritime freight. It is a port that is involved in international collaboration all over the world and is expected to bring the benefits involved in such an arrangement to bear on its relationship with the NPA and Nigerian ports.
“PAI sets up important joint venture agreements and strategic projects worldwide to assist regions with strong economic growth in the further development of their port and logistics infrastructure based on the Port of Antwerp’s know-how and expertise,” it clearly expatiates on its website. This may be acceptable at the moment but as long as the ports ownership and management are still in the hands of government, there is the likelihood that the financing and efficiency would still be compromised. What is desirable is a proper port reform in which there is a greater involvement of the private sector management.
While waiting for privatisation, there is the need to make the ports work. For instance, efforts should be made to eliminate the manual operations at the ports by introducing the use of technology. Applying modern technology tools will reduce the level of human interface and increase efficiency. It will also reduce the level of corruption, which comes with the large number of government agencies involved in goods inspection and clearance at the ports.
To relieve the pressure on the Lagos ports of Apapa and Tin Can Island, the other ports in the country should be expanded and adequately equipped to be able to handle bigger ships. The Calabar Port, for instance, was meant to be dredged to be able to take bigger ships but was abandoned. The poor state of the port has crippled the Export Processing Zone in Calabar, depriving it the opportunity of becoming a major source of job creation and to expand the economy.
There is the need to shift emphasis from trucks for the movement of goods in and out of the ports to the use of the rail system. Before and in the immediate post-independence era, this was the practice until the rail system practically collapsed.
