BusinessDay Maritime Conference ‘Strengthening Nigeria’s Maritime Business: Bridging Policy Gaps and Optimising Global Competitiveness,’ on 30th September convened a who’s-who of shipowners, regulators, lawyers, port operators and freight forwarders to confront a blunt truth: Nigeria’s maritime promise is real, but the system that should turn that promise into jobs, exports and revenue is fragmented – and running out of runway.
Frank Aigbogun, Publisher/CEO of BusinessDay, set the tone in his opening: ‘Nigeria’s maritime sector is not a side note to our economy.’ He urged delegates to stop talking about potential and start converting assets into measurable economic value.
Keynote: law, policy and a hard look at implementation
Mfon Usoro, national president, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Nigeria, delivering the keynote address
Mfon Usoro, president, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Nigeria, in her keynote address, set the tone with the masterfully crafted theme, ‘Bridging Policy Gaps and Advancing Maritime Competitiveness: A Roadmap for Nigeria’s Future.’ Her central argument: Nigeria already has many of the policies it needs; the gap is implementation.
She laid out a simple taxonomy of maritime business: ship ownership and operations at the centre, surrounded by maritime technology, seafaring manpower, ports and logistics, and supporting services (finance, law, insurance). ‘It is the crux of the matter. All the other ones around it operate around the main shipping itself,’ she said.
On indigenous shipping, she was pointed and practical. Recalling the Obasanjo government’s ill-fated fleet purchase, she warned that ‘operation of a ship profitably is not like buying a car. You have to prepare the structure, the manpower, the marketing assessment, everything before you buy the ship to ensure the sustainability of the business.’
She rejected the narrative that Nigeria lacks policy: ‘I don’t agree that we don’t have policies. We have a lot of policies,’ she said, citing the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Act (2007) and the legal instruments that create incentives for Nigerian ownership (national-carrier status with 60% Nigerian ownership and 70% Nigerian officers, for example). Her challenge to the room: after enactment, where is the delivery?
She backed that diagnosis with market numbers: Q1 2025 merchandise trade stood at ?38.30 trillion, of which crude accounted for ?11.90 trillion – ‘there’s cargo outside of crude,’ she emphasised – and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) recorded 4,100 seagoing vessel calls in 2021, none flying the Nigerian flag.
Goodwill messages: private sector, states, and forwarders weigh in
The conference threaded practical examples through policy prescriptions.
Representing NLNG Shipping and Marine Services (NSML), Ladu spoke for the group and for the absent managing director, Abdul Khadir Ahmed, stressing that policy must translate to technical capacity. NSML runs 13 vessels for clients and maintains a Maritime Centre of Excellence in Bonny – a model, he said, of deliberate domestic skill development: ‘With the right policy and the right skill set we can actually do it as a country.’
Anambra State’s commissioner for Transport, Patricia Igwebuike, pitched a subnational perspective. She called Onitsha River Port a priority and urged inter-agency collaboration and capacity building: ‘It’s not just that you have a river port. You must get the capacity building, the training, and the interaction with others in the sector.’
From the freight-forwarding community, Godfrey Emeka Nwosu, general secretary, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), speaking for Tochukwu Ezisi, president, NAGAFF, said the sector’s future will be defined by ‘digital transformation, regulatory harmony and empowerment of local operators,’ urging professionalism, transparency and partnership between government and private operators.
The fleet gap and the cargo guarantee that never arrived
Usoro had earlier, in her keynote address, exposed the fatal flaw in Nigeria’s national-carrier policy: political promises of cargo guarantees were never operationalised. She recalled the Nigerian Fleet Committee effort (with private entrepreneurs and foreign partners ready to take minority shares) – and the dealbreakers: ‘Where is the cargo?’ potential partners asked.
The NIMASA Act’s Section 36, she said, anticipates this by guaranteeing cargo (a minimum share of federal, state and local government cargo, 50% of dry and liquid bulk, and 50% of international aid cargo) for vessels granted national-carrier status. But she cut to the core: ‘The ministry could not give this guarantee because they don’t own cargo. NIMASA does not generate cargo.’ In short, legal guarantees exist on paper; the operational plan – cross-ministerial, cross-agency cargo allocation and fiscal incentives – does not.
Logistics performance and the ‘whole-of-government’ fix
Usoro weaponised data to press the point. Nigeria ranks 88th of 139 on the World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI), with low scores across customs efficiency (2.6), infrastructure (2.4), international shipments (2.5), logistics competence (2.3), tracking (2.7) and only relative strength in timeliness (3.1). ‘Isn’t that a shame?’ she asked.
Her prescription: a whole-of-government approach. The Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy cannot run the show alone. ‘The silo approach does not work. It has to be a Nigerian project, not a NIMASA project,’ she said – demanding ministerial coordination, integrated budgets and enforceable implementation committees that include finance, works, ports, customs, immigration and state and local governments.
Regulation, taxes and enforcement: a legal voice
The keynote-author and legal veteran returned to practical fixes: cut the number of agencies operating in ports (more than the eight authorised is a routine violation), reduce punitive taxes on shipowners and replicate aviation’s spare-parts exemptions for shipping: ‘It is not rocket science. shipping deserves the same treatment – zero importation tax,’ she insisted. ‘We must reduce the number of agencies at the ports and enforce discipline.’
Panel 1 – policy and infrastructure: the central diagnosis
Moderated by Kenneth Jukpo, managing director, JUKKEN Consults Limited, the first plenary brought together environmental, legal and operational lenses.
Speakers decried that many planned Inland Container Depots (ICDs) remain dormant. The Dala ICD, in Kano State, for example, ‘could produce a capacity twice the size of Apapa’ but customs have refused to resume operations there. ‘Who is Customs to say they will not resume in Dala?’ the speaker demanded – another illustration that policy without enforcement is paper.
On funding, a panellist noted successful precedents: Seychelles’ blue bond quickly mobilised capital and accelerated its blue economy; and the Lagos-Calabar coastal road financing showed that when political will, institutional support and a clear infrastructure objective align, external funding follows. The ask: shift from drafting more policy to unlocking capital via coordinated, bankable project packaging – blue bonds, Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) financing, bonds for ports and port-linked infrastructure – and empower agencies to raise finance with Ministry of Finance buy-in.
Sustainability and carbon opportunity
Felicia C. Mogo, president, African Marine Environment Sustainability Initiative (AFMESI), stressed that environmental, social, governance (ESG) is no longer optional: ‘ESG – environment, social and governance – is now what is ruling the world.’ She urged pollution controls, community inclusion, and marine-habitat protection (mangroves, seagrass, peatlands). Absent environmental integrity, she warned, grants and green finance will not flow.
On decarbonisation, the panel argued Nigeria is well placed – its crude is relatively low-sulfur – but ports must be upgraded to handle low-sulfur fuels, provide scrubber waste management, and adopt standards for vessel fuel use. One panellist who had participated in International Maritime Organisation (IMO) efforts urged Nigeria to explore carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) and emissions trading pathways: ‘We can capture carbon, utilise what is useful, and then safely store the rest in abandoned oil wells and geological formations across the country,’ he said. He also flagged mangroves – Nigeria’s mangrove forests are a global asset and a potential source of nature-based credits and debt-for-nature swaps.
Panel 2 – the single window, port community systems and digital hygiene
The second plenary, moderated by Samuel Dayo Ebidunmi (MICS), Chartered Shipbroker and Maritime/Supply Chain consultant, turned from bricks and mangroves to bytes and Application Programming Interface (APIs).
‘If you deploy technology on an inefficient system, you simply amplify inefficiency,’ Gbotolorun Babatunde Ayodele, GM, ICT, Nigerian Ports Authority, said, and added a crucial caveat: technology is an enabler, not a cure.
NPA’s current information communication technology (ICT) projects include gated access and closed-circuit television (CCTV) pilots at truck transit parks; vessel tracking and plans for Vessel Traffic Services (VTS); an electronic berth allocation system; and revenue transparency tools.
But the big game-changer, he said, is the National Single Window (NSW) – a federal platform to streamline document exchange – and the NPA’s Port Community System (PCS), which will give stakeholders shared visibility over cargo flows.
‘Information sharing and integration are key. Stakeholder resistance must be broken,’ he said, listing constraints: budget, power supply, training and legal recognition of electronic documents. His operational approach: build NPA’s internal infrastructure first, then scale integrations and system-to-system APIs rather than manual portal-by-portal access.
Port state control, security and data
Richard Olabi (speaking for Sunday Umoren, secretary general, Abuja MoU on Ports State Control) linked safety, security, environment and crew welfare. ‘Without ships, there can be no ports,’ he said. He argued that security threats across West and Central Africa have pushed up freight rates and underlined the need to harmonise port state control. He pointed to NIMASA’s C4I system at Kirikiri – integrating Automatic Identification System (AIS) for real-time maritime domain awareness – and urged alignment with NPA’s Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) for secure navigation and inspection workflows.
Freight forwarders: the single window is existential
Kingsley Igwe, registrar/CEO, Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding (CRFFN) in Nigeria, made the clearest business case for digitalisation: ‘Everything that goes wrong in the supply chain translates directly into cost. It affects the price of goods in the market, and ultimately every Nigerian citizen.’ He positioned the national single window as Nigeria’s must-do reform: it reduces human interfaces, blocks illegal charges and enables importers/exporters to transact with regulators from a single entry point. He invited stakeholders to nationwide sensitisation events (noting an October session) and pushed for integration between NSW and the Port Community System (PCS).
Igwe also argued for professionalisation: licensing freight forwarders, haulage firms, warehouse operators and customs brokers to remove unqualified actors from the system. ‘Freight forwarding is a professional service,’ he said. CRFFN plans enforcement of licensing provisions ‘in the coming weeks.’
B’Odogwu vs Single Window – clearing up a live technical question
During QandA, a delegate asked about the practical difference between B’Odogwu (the customs electronic declaration platform) and the National Single Window. Kingsley clarified: B’Odogwu is customs-specific (harmonised system (HS) classification, duty calculation) and accessible to licensed customs brokers; the National Single Window is broader – it centralises permits and certificates from Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), CRFFN and other agencies, and will eventually embed B’Odogwu functions so a trader can process all approvals from a single login.
Real problems, practical solutions
Speakers underlined a handful of concrete priorities:
Rail and inland logistics – ports like Apapa and Tincan are river ports hemmed in by urbanisation; only Apapa currently has meaningful rail; hinterland rail and ICDs (Inland Container Depots) must be revived to decongest terminals.
Modal balance – revive barge operations and integrate them with road and rail (Ports and Terminal Multiservices Limited’s (PTML) barge movements to Mile-2 were cited as a positive experiment).
Deep seaports – dredging Apapa to ever-deeper drafts is a losing game; the panel urged investment in naturally deep drafts (16m+) at sites such as Abia and Akwa Ibom to attract mega vessels and economies of scale: ‘If we want mega vessels that offer economies of scale, we cannot continue with ports whose drafts are capped at 13 metres.’
Legal and fiscal fixes – standardise customs procedures across ports, remove punitive taxes on shipowners, adopt stabilisation clauses in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and ensure community consultation and compensation frameworks.
Data and statistics – create a single source of truth for throughput, vessel calls, detention statistics, and cargo flows to support planning and enforcement: ‘If you don’t have the information, you cannot make the right decisions.’
Voices from the floor: inclusion, licensing and rolling out change management
Freight forwarders in the audience raised a practical and political point: they are routinely excluded from policy design despite being the operators who execute trade flows. ‘Nobody has considered how to empower the freight forwarder,’ one delegate said, calling for targeted funding and training so small- and medium-sized forwarders can buy the laptops, software and connectivity NSW will require.
Another delegate urged maximising inland waterways: ‘Let us use what we have to get what we want – jetty-to-jetty water movements can relieve roads today.’
A final practical exchange cut through to what matters: the NSW is near completion (panellists said ˜60% integrated), pilots are expected in the coming months, and legal recognition for e-documents (e-manifests, e-invoices, electronic bills of lading) must be fast-tracked. Kingsley estimated that the broad adoption of electronic documents could reduce logistics costs by up to 40%.
Closing: the ask is simple – execute, integrate, regulate
The conference closed on a procedural but symbolic note – a group photograph and a call to action from BusinessDay’s trade correspondent, Bethl Ujabi: the ‘most important part of today is the action that begins after now.’
Across plenaries, the prescriptions converged:
Stop treating maritime as a ministry project. Make it a national project with ministerial key performance indicators (KPIs) and cross-cutting budgets. ‘Whole-of-government’ was the conference watchword.
Fast-track the National Single Window and Port Community System – with legal recognition of e-documents, strong cybersecurity rules and an integration roadmap that prioritises API-to-API communication (not manual portals).
Invest in hinterlands and deep seaports rather than endlessly dredging shallow river channels.
Professionalise the supply chain through licensing, training and a freight-forwarder support fund so local operators can adopt digital freight models.
Make sustainability a funding lever – protect mangroves, pursue CCUS pilots and position Nigeria to capture nature-based credits and green finance.
Bottom line
The conversation at BusinessDay’s maritime conference was less about new ideas than about discipline: Nigeria is not short of plans or policies; what it lacks is coordinated execution, line-ministry ownership of outcomes, predictable finance and the digital plumbing to make the whole system visible and accountable.
If ministers, regulators and private investors can align, the payoff is tangible: more Nigerian ships in international trade, lower logistics costs, jobs in ship management and seafaring, and export-ready supply chains. If they don’t, the country will continue to watch foreign flags carry Nigerian trade and foreign ports reap the productivity gains.
As Mogo put it in a moment that cut through the policy layers to a political charge: ‘We have policy – now we must show the will to implement it.’ The rest, the delegates warned, will be earned – or lost – in the months after the conference.