Investors in Nigeria’s logistics industry are still reeling from old problems they expected the government’s reforms to solve. Transport operators at BusinessDay’s Mobility and Logistics Conference in Lagos recounted persistent infrastructural gaps that squeeze their operations and threaten the competitiveness of a sector already considered volatile.
‘Disruption has become the order of the day. In those days, disruption would happen, but you would recover before another happened. Today, the disruption is back-to-back. If it’s not currency fluctuation, it’s an environmental disaster like a flood,’ said Obiora Madu, director-general, Africa Centre for Supply Chain (ACSC).
Logistics operators in Nigeria have absorbed heavy risks for years. After the federal government introduced reforms at the turn of the new administration, including the removal of fuel subsidies to provide investable funds in key infrastructure like roads and a new tax reform that promised to axe double taxation, progress has remained slow.
The cost of moving goods is set as much at ports and on the road as at the pump. One freight forwarder panel blamed fragmentation for much of the delay. Shipping lines, terminal operators and customs run separate procedures, which increases waiting time.
‘The number one thing is there’s fragmentation in the processes. And once they are fragmented in this way, what you have is unavoidable delays. That translates to the losses, which we, as freight forwarders, encounter. And of course, these losses are transferred to every other Nigerian,’ said Ifeanyi Onwuachu, managing director of Janksmay Global Services.
The National Single Window, designed to unify some of these processes, is still in the first phase. Operators were promised the launch of the second phase in November this year, which will open for export permit processing.
Madu said shipping lines grant importers 21 free days, which he described as insufficient for a system in which trucks queue for berths and paperwork. ’40 percent of total port cost came from accumulated truck delays,’ Madu said, explaining that 7,000 trucks a day on a Lagos ring planned for 2,400 trucks is a disaster waiting to happen.
Fuel is now the heaviest single input for many operators. Without subsidy, fuel and diesel prices have reached record levels, inflating operational costs. A Chisco executive said the company buys diesel at almost N2,000 per litre and has started sourcing its own supply after third party supply became unreliable.
This inflates freight costs for businesses. ‘Up to 45 percent of trade value is lost to freight costs and inefficiency, versus five percent 10 percent elsewhere,’ Madu explained. ‘So, N3.2 trillion a year lost to transport inefficiency.’
Meanwhile, bad roads have made maintenance of expensive vehicles regardless of lifespan almost inevitable. Chisco said the price of a 56-seater transport bus has doubled to N300 million from N150 million in only two years.
An SBM Intelligence report cited that over 60 percent of Nigeria’s 108,000-kilometre road network suffers from disrepair, costing billions annually in lost productivity and shortened vehicle lifespans.
‘We have to maintain the vehicles. When the roads are rickety, my supposed four-year-old vehicle becomes four years old in two years. This is a real reality,’ said Mildred Ekanem, executive director, Lagride Nigeria Limited.
Buchi Ochuba, head of business operations at Chisco Transport and Logistics, complained that a journey that should take 12 hours sometimes takes 36, and detours and breakdowns burn extra fuel.
Onwuachu said the roads are wearing out his vehicles fast. ‘If these roads survive four years, you should thank your God,’ he he said, adding that a truck can be lost before it has paid for itself.
‘As I’m talking to you now, we have over 30 trucks that have been on the road for the past 15 days. And every day, shipping lines are giving us detention notices. We need to pay. If we don’t pay, the next business will be affected,’ he said.
Public transport operators also maintained that they cannot pass those costs on. Kayode Opeifa, managing director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, said fares have stayed at the same level for five to six years because the agency subsidises riders.
‘We have been charging the same rate for the past five, six years,’ he said, adding that the fares cannot rise to economic levels without hurting passengers.
Persistent power outages also disrupt charging for electric vehicles, introduced as a buffer against high fuel and diesel costs. Lagride said it costs revenue and strains relations with drivers and partners.
In 2025, the federal government promised logistics operators lower taxes with the introduction of an unpopular new tax regime in early 2026.
The Nigerian logistics industry, where more than 90 percent of goods are moved by road, has been dealt with excessive taxation, where haulage and logistics companies face over 200 legal and hidden taxes along highways.
Taiwo Oyedele, the czar of the Presidential Tax Committee and now minister of finance, assured players in the industry of relief when the new tax laws take effect in January 2026.
However, industry players insist that the promise is yet to be fulfilled.
‘The government is one of our major problems in doing business in Nigeria. They tax you. They tax everything that is taxable. Even when you want to repair a road by yourself, you’re asked to pay money to repair your road,’ said Ochuba.
Opeifa said the state of the sector comes down to government. ‘If government does not invest in infrastructure, the private sector will never invest,’ he said. He also said the data needed to plan the sector is being kept from operators. ‘There are data, but they are not available,’ he said, calling on agencies to publish their figures every month.
For Madu, infrastructure is necessary, but integration is what creates value. ‘You can have solid infrastructure, standing alone, but you won’t get any value from it,’ he said. He encouraged regulators to make predictability, correlation, and efficient compliance central to service delivery. ‘To operators, look beyond your own assets. Optimise the interfaces that decide total system performance,’ he said.
Operators plan to press their case. Opeifa said he intends to meet officials from the Nigerian Shipping Council and the Nigerian Ports Authority, along with freight associations, before the end of November to address logistics costs.