Apapa Port was built in the 1920s by the British colonial masters apparently to facilitate the shipping of agricultural raw materials to Britain. Tin Can Island Port was built by the federal government during Olusegun Obasanjo’s reign as military dictator. It was commissioned in 1977.
The two ports are Nigeria’s main maritime hubs. They handle 70 per cent of the nation’s imports and exports.
Apapa Port musters a 55-hectare container terminal, 1,005-meter quay length with draught of 12.5 meters. The port is plagued with perennial congestion as the cargo clearing processes are handled through cumbersome paperwork.
Tin Can Island Port is equipped with 12 berths and a 260-meter vessel limit. The port can handle 10-16 vessels simultaneously.
The port battles debilitating congestion that inhibits Nigeria’s imports and exports processing and plagues the business community with high cost of doing businesses as a result of clumsy cargo clearing processes.
Nigeria has ports in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Calabar, Cross River state and Warri in Delta state. The ports are very idle due to calamitous infrastructure deficits. While Port Harcourt Port is relatively busy, the one in Calabar is idle because it is bedeviled by catastrophically shallow channels and berthing facilities. No modern large ship can use the facility in Calabar Port because of those encumbrances. The Port in Warri is constrained by similar infrastructure deficits.
Calabar Port was dredged in 1977 by Harbour Works of the Netherlands but the channels remain disastrously shallow for any modern large ship to venture into.
The federal government is sufficiently disturbed by the constraints in the nation’s maritime sector. Last month during President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s state visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the British government for a £746 million export financing and rehabilitation of Apapa and Tin Can Ports. Decades of neglect have considerably restrained the abilities of the two ports to handle the nation’s imports and exports with the speed required by modern ports.
Manual processing of cargo clearing and poor infrastructure at the two ports lead to heavy traffic and long delays in cargo clearing and consequently high demurrage fees imposed on importers.
The contract recently signed by President Tinubu with the government of Britain will lead to the digitisation of the two major ports. That process will end the perennial congestion engendered by the cumbersome process of goods clearing at the two major ports. The business community will heave sighs of relief if the step taken by the federal government is pursued to a logical conclusion.
The huge demurrage incurred by importers because of clumsy goods clearing processes and infrastructure deficit at the two major ports will vanish instantly with the completion of the rehabilitation process.
Goods will be cleared promptly as the cumbersome paper works are confined to the arcade of history. The two ports will be equipped with more berthing facilities. Their berths will be dredged from 12.5 meters to 16 meters, making it possible for large modern ships to berth.
The deal to upgrade facilities at the two ports will decrease container dwell time and enhance Nigeria’s maritime competitiveness through digitisation and capacity expansion. Rehabilitation of Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports will enhance efficiency, improve logistics and position Nigeria as a competitive hub for regional and international trade.
It will further enhance Nigeria’s ability to compete under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Besides, it will improve Nigeria’s non-oil revenue, attract foreign investments and create thousands of jobs.
The project will be executed over a period of 48 months at the end of which endemic congestion at the two ports will no longer be recorded. The multi-million pounds project will benefit both Nigeria and Britain. There are strong indications that Britain’s steel industry which is currently undergoing serious economic depression will benefit from the project as it will generate thousands of jobs from the £22 million that will be spent on steel products for the rehabilitation of the two ports.
Nigeria’s economy will benefit immensely from the project. It will create thousands of jobs at a time when the economy is encumbered by alarming double digit unemployment.
Above all, it will empower the two ports to handle the massive growth in non-oil exports recorded recently in the economy. The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has taken steps to encourage Nigerian exporters to add value to their export products. The council has also opened markets for Nigerian export goods. Those major steps have led to massive increase in Nigeria’s non-oil exports which the two ports cannot handle with their archaic cargo clearing facilities and disastrous infrastructure deficits. With the rehabilitation of the two ports they will be in position to handle the increase in non-oil exports and reduce the cost of doing business.
The planned rehabilitation of the two ports will, above all, enhance foreign direct investments into Nigeria’s economy. Foreign direct investors who were deterred by the perennial congestion in the two ports curiously watched the scene of the signing of the contract for the rehabilitation of the ports. They will be very willing to invest in Nigeria when the ports are rehabilitated and empowered to clear goods promptly.
Nigeria has drawn the foreign direct investors into its economy in recent times with the increase in the nation’s total foreign reserves. The reserve has risen from the seemingly jinxed $33 billion threshold it maintained for decades and has now crossed the $50 billion mark.
At the previous position, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) could not promptly allocate foreign exchange to foreign direct investors for the export of the proceeds of their investment to their home countries.
Now with the reserves standing above $50 billion, CBN can promptly allocate foreign exchange for export of investment proceeds.
Nigeria is no longer tying down foreign investors earnings. That is why the investors are trouping in. More will come when port congestion vanishes with rehabilitation of the two ports.
