Don’t wait for FG, develop your seaports, Akwa Ibom, C/River, others told

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Read History Go to My Account Log Out Enhanced by Google BDSunday Don’t wait for FG, develop your seaports, Akwa Ibom, C/River, others told …Urged to emulate Lagos, other states Considering the huge volume of cargo it has received and shipments out of the

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Considering the huge volume of cargo it has received and shipments out of the country in the three years it has operated, the Lekki Deep Sea Port has been a success story.

Commissioned in January 2023, the port, which is Nigeria’s deepest and largest seaport, has opened the eyes of investors to the hugely untapped potential and possibilities in the maritime sector.

According to maritime and economy experts, the success of the port, which cost $1.5 billion is attributed to workable business models: a public-private partnership (PPP) and a 45-year Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer (BOOT) concession model, while also reaping from the advantage of being located in a trade free zone.

Going by the feat, experts also noted that many states, especially those along the Atlantic Ocean corridor, are now mulling deep seaport projects.

So far, the planned and approved deep seaport projects in the country include: Badagry Deep Seaport (Lagos State), Gateway/Ogun Deep Seaport (Ogun State), Olokola Deep Seaport (Ondo State), Ibom Deep Seaport (Akwa Ibom State), Bonny Deep Seaport (Rivers State), Bakassi Deep Seaport (Cross River State), Agge Deep Seaport (Bayelsa State) and Burutu Deep Seaport (Delta State).

Looking at the development, the experts noted that expression of interest and the will to execute a project are two different things, hence they urged the states and their private sector promoters to look before they leap.

Frank Ngwu, a professor of Strategy, decried that Nigeria lags among peers in Africa in maritime infrastructure, hence the need for more investments in the sector, which he noted can rival the oil sector.

According to him, Egypt has over 40 seaports, Morocco has 10, but Nigeria has only two major seaports, with Lekki just coming on stream, despite the extensive coastline, a development, he said, is creating a significant infrastructure gap.

For Julius Iyatseh, a freight forwarder, who receives and sends cargos majorly along the Nigeria-Angola-South Africa and European maritime routes, while the Lekki port is the way forward, it also points to the fact that the country truly lags in maritime infrastructure.

“South Africa has nine very functional ports and I do a lot from the Port of Durban, the busiest port in Africa and the largest container facility in Southern Africa,” Iyatseh said.

While South Africa has fewer ports than Egypt and Morocco, Iyatseh observed that the few are optimally used.

“We have over six ports, out of which only two or three, Apapa, Tin Can and Onne are fully operational. The Lekki port is just new, but the biggest. We need more to decongest our ports, to facilitate more international trade and earn more revenue,” he said.

But, as much as the country needs more ports along its extensive coastline, he warned that the investment should be worth it, else it will become white elephant projects like the Ajaokuta Mills.

As he pointed out, some observers are already decrying that many state governors are in a haste to get approvals for the development of seaports, but have not fully studied why the Lekki port has been successful.

“Our governors have very fat federal allocations now and they are thinking of big projects like airports and seaports. But it is not all about having the funds to build or land to donate, but the sustainability of the projects years after commissioning them matters most,” Onyewuchi Akagbule, an economist and university don, said.

The Lekki seaport PPP model, according to him, is the best in the country so far considering the tight agreement between the major stakeholders; China Harbour Engineering Company, Tolaram Group, Lagos State Government, and Nigerian Ports Authority.

“States like Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ondo, Ogun and others that are planning to build seaports should learn from Lagos because failure to get everything right from the onset will result in abandoned projects later,” Akagbule said, noting further that the federal allocation the governors are banking on to source their counterpart funding will not continue to be fat in the future.

He recommended the public-private partnership (PPP) and a Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer (BOOT) concession model to the states and their partners, while insisting that the state equity could be just the land in order to give the private partners the leverage to run the ports efficiently with less interference.

But Marcel Nkwagu, an entrepreneur, importer and member of the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA), extended a clarion call to the states urging them to sort out issues that could impede the progress of their deep seaport projects.

Citing the Akwa Ibom State deep seaport project as an instance, he regretted that the planned relocation had stalled the development of the project long after the groundbreaking ceremony performed at the approved site under the administration of Governor Godswill Akpabio.

“By now, the deep seaport project would have been operational if the issue of relocation from Ibaka Bay, which was approved by the federal government did not arise,” Nkwagu said.

“Now the Oron Nation, who owns the Ibaka Bay are insisting on the project remaining in their land, while other interests want it taken elsewhere.

“Of course, the private investors are pulling out and the state cannot execute the project alone. This should serve as a lesson to other states. Get everything right to ensure smooth execution like the Lekki port.”

Observers think that the Ibaka Deep Seaport issue may be the reason President Bola Tinubu has delayed visiting Cross River State for the flag-off of the Bakassi Deep Seaport project.

Akagbule has raised a red flag on the Bakassi project, warning that work should start as the $3.5 billion, which the Cross River State Government secured from Afreximbank for the project in May 2024, has to be serviced.

“It was in the news in February last year that the Cross River State Government has formalized an agreement with ARISE Integrated Industrial Platform, a UAE-based company, which it granted about 80 percent stake in the Bakassi Deep Seaport project. So, what is delaying construction at the site, the loan is running and needs to be serviced and repaid,” he stated.

It would be recalled that in the last quarter of 2025, Bassey Otu, governor of Cross River State, celebrated the issuance of a Certificate of Compliance by the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy for the deep seaport, a development the governor said that signified that “the Bakassi Deep Seaport has moved decisively from vision to verifiable reality”.

But the stakeholders and the people of the state are still waiting for the flag-off of the project.

But Tajudeen Salako, another economist, suggested that the states should also consider other levels of port development and not necessarily deep seaport.

Citing Egypt as an example, Salako noted that the North African economy giant segmented its over 40 ports across commercial and specialized ports.

While Alexandria Port & El-Dekheila Port are the largest primary gateways handling the majority of Egypt’s foreign maritime trade, there are petroleum seaports, mining seaports, fishing seaports and tourist seaports.

“I love Egypt’s organised and segmented seaport investment models. Imagine having petroleum, fishing and even tourist seaports.

“Our state government should consider these models too. They should develop seaports according to their needs and funding capacity.

“Niger Delta state should consider petroleum and fishing ports, Ondo mining because it is closer to Kogi, our hub for mining, and tourist ports in Cross River and Lagos too,” he suggested.

Toeing the same line, Akagbule said that developing seaports according to need and funding capacity will ensure timely completion and also enable states to incur less debts.

However, the experts warned that developing seaports should not be used as a bragging right like many governors do today with the many airports they built that hardly receive flights.

They noted that seaports gulp huge investments, hence should be well-though-after because the investors expect good returns on their investments, the banks and lenders also expect repayment of the loans, while the people expect economic empowerment from such projects.