FIC REPORT (LAGOS STATE) – High port charges, decades-old infrastructure, weak digital integration and the poor attitude of port users are combining to undermine the competitiveness of Nigeria’s seaports, maritime stakeholders warned at a panel session I attended at the 4th Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) Annual Maritime Lecture, held at the Nigerian Air Force Events Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos.
The session formed part of this year’s lecture, themed “Nigerian Ports Modernisation, Charges and the Competitiveness Question,” and drew contributions from regulators, private-sector operators and business owners who each pointed to different fault lines in the system.
Moderating the panel, Mr Emmanuel Maigunwa set the tone by arguing that port competitiveness should be measured by more than the cost of moving goods in and out of the country. In his framing, the real prize is positioning Nigeria as a major regional trade and transit corridor — a goal he said efficient, competitively priced ports could help deliver by easing the burden on consumers while pulling in cargo traffic from neighbouring countries that would otherwise bypass Nigerian terminals.
Speaking on behalf of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Mr Willem Inya zeroed in on the multiplicity of port charges as the sore point for private operators. Importers, he said, routinely face a stack of separate charges just to clear a single container, and delays in that process often pile on demurrage costs that push the total bill higher still. He pressed for the harmonisation and rationalisation of port charges, warning that the current tangle of fees is quietly eroding the competitiveness of Nigerian businesses.
Joseph Adegbite, Assistant General Manager for Corporate and Strategic Planning at the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), took the conversation toward the physical state of the ports themselves, describing ageing infrastructure as one of the central obstacles to efficient operations. With the exception of Lekki Deep Sea Port, he noted, most of Nigeria’s ports are now more than 50 years old — a vintage that, in his account, directly limits the kind of cargo-handling equipment that can be safely deployed. That equipment ceiling, he explained, drags down productivity and stretches out the time vessels and cargo spend within the port system, with the resulting inefficiencies ultimately passed on to port users and consumers as added cost.
Adegbite pointed to the Federal Government’s port modernisation programme as the response already underway, starting in the Lagos area given its outsized share of the country’s maritime traffic before extending to the Eastern ports. But he was careful to frame modernisation as more than concrete and cranes, insisting it must also cover digital integration, renewable energy, Port Community Systems and the Maritime Single Window. “Port operation is a communal system. It is a community,” he said, arguing that digital integration among government agencies and other stakeholders is essential to breaking down operational silos and cutting down on delays. He flagged additional infrastructure concerns at the Rivers and Warri ports, and said Onne Port in particular is in need of significant upgrades.
The most pointed intervention came from the floor, where Mrs Chinwe Ezenwa, Managing Director of Le Look Bags, pushed back on the idea that infrastructure spending alone would fix what ails Nigeria’s ports.
Without a parallel shift in the attitude of stakeholders, she argued, new infrastructure risks being undermined almost as soon as it is built. She called for sustained sensitisation and reorientation of port users and practitioners toward more responsible use and protection of public assets, recounting instances she had personally witnessed of government infrastructure being vandalised. For Ezenwa, sustained public enlightenment and a renewed value system among stakeholders are just as integral to port modernisation as any physical upgrade.
Sourced by:
Obijeaka Nwamaka .A
Assistant Director .
22/09/2026
