Analyses

NPA channel management options: dangers of politicising the process

By Dr. Edmund Chilaka

Preamble
The recently reported pronouncement by the Federal Ministry of Transport (FMOT) on the Nigerian Ports Authority’s (NPA) management of seaport channels deserves the closer attention of port industry operators to ensure that it is in line with the best interest of all stakeholders.

According to the news reports, the FMOT was reported to have directed the NPA to re-consider in-house management of the channels.

In view of the extreme importance of the issues at stake here, it is critical to make this clarificatory comment to ventilate the space and avail the public, all authorities, and especially policymakers, of the unimpeachable facts of the case in hand.

For, as Edmund Burke said, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

From my long experience in publishing local and international dredging data and comparisons with other successful maritime nations, I can say that the dredging of the channels is at the crux of Nigeria’s current position in both regional and international sea trade, especially as the commander of over 65% of the maritime shipping traffic in West Africa.

The aim of this comment, therefore, is to protect the integrity of Nigeria’s channel management architecture from any adverse groundswell of politics, and the reason is obvious.

The reach of Nigeria’s port industry presently exceeds the boundaries of national politics and any interventions deemed by any stakeholder to have adversely affected their operations brook possible legal actions locally or overseas, with Nigeria’s sovereign assets exposed to judgment claims.

I shall demonstrate this below. So, what are Nigeria’s options for harbour dredging in order to avoid an erroneous backward step?

Is the reported FMOT directive on the matter tenable, practicable, and/or, advisable?

Why Dredge at all?

Unlike countries blessed with natural seaports which have deep channels unblocked by silting sand, many Nigerian seaports are actually built along rivers and dredging their channels to the sea is indispensable to make them functional in the international scheme of shipping and maritime trade, and to keep them to the advertised draughts.

Any port is only as good as its channels and berths. Without a navigable channel, no port will be patronized by ship owners, carriers, or other marine operators, because the essence of a port is as a gateway to safely bring in imports and take out exports, without damage to the vessel.

For example, the Lagos port system came alive only after 1907 when the steam dredger, Egerton, removed the blocking sand shoals to gain a depth of 10½ft needed by big steamers to call at the Customs Wharf in those days.

Previously, most Lagos-bound cargoes were landed at Forcados Port (which had the necessary depth), for transshipment to Lagos.

Thus, from 1907 till 2005, the Lagos port system was dredged continuously using in-house management and infrastructure and the status of its channels and aids to navigation always determined the size and growth of its annual throughput volumes.

NPA’s In-House Dredging Management: Pre-Concession Era

However, although the dredging regimen used during the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-independent periods sufficed for the time, the Authority’s in-house harbour management methods began to fail by the 1980s.

There were ship groundings and lots of complaints from ship owners. Note that the NPA had acquired some equipment for dredging and wreck management, namely: two trailing suction hopper dredgers (TSHDs), Sea Lion and River Challawa; the suction dredger, SD Gumel, the heavy-duty crane, Kakube, the buoy-laying vessel, Bode Thomas, and the hydrographic survey vessel, Argungu, all deployed to the Lagos pilotage district.

For the Eastern ports, the Authority retained the services of Tayasa Dredging Nigeria Ltd and the foreign dredging companies.

This was the state of affairs until the Joint Venture partnerships with Lagos Channel Management (LCM) and Bonny Channel Company (BCC)) were set up in 2005.

Nevertheless, as I write, most of this NPA’s owned fleet of dredgers and equipment in Lagos are completely outdated and non-functional.

In a telling report of this era, the World Bank concluded that the state-owned enterprises (SOEs), including NPA, guzzled Government subventions, returned losses on investments, were incurably bureaucratic, slow, corrupt and mostly irredeemable.

This verdict gave rise to the seaport reforms. However, I daresay that if the present FMOT idea of restoring NPA’s in-house channel management arrangement is adopted, the previous issues which necessitated the reforms would resurface.

The nation would see more of such losses of key equipment caused largely by the typical bureaucracy, lack of maintenance, and ineptitude.

Moreover, new staff would have to be employed. Would they be willing to work the 24/7 rosters being used presently by the JV partners to keep the Lagos and Bonny pilotage districts effectively deep, buoyed, lighted, and wreck-free?

The Origin of the Joint Venture Partnerships

Conversely, let us take a closer look at the JV channel management arrangements which were emplaced during the 2001 seaport reforms.

So far, it remains the most rigorous and concerted effort to lift the Nigerian seaport system to international levels of administration and operation, as attested by current key performance indicators (KPIs).

Various stakeholders and consultants participated to deploy this system, including the National Assembly, the Federal Executive Council, the FMOT, the National Council on Privatisation, the Transport Sector Reform Implementation Committee, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, the World Bank, CPCS Transcom Canada, the ICS, Royal Haskoning, NPA, NIMASA, and several inter-ministerial committees, on the one hand.

On the other hand, there was the coterie of local and foreign shipping lines and port operating companies, which participated in the bids for the port terminals offered by the NPA under the emergent seaport concession programme.

The process lasted from 2001 and culminated in 2006 when successful bidders took over cargo operations in 26 terminals, which were offered for a concession from Lagos to Calabar under the newly-adopted landlord port model.

The joint venture partnership agreements which shared the former in-house channel management functions with the NPA were established with LCM and BCC in August 2005. Coastal and Reclamation Engineers (CARES) were appointed as independent dredging auditors.

The resultant lease agreements and joint venture partnerships relied on the execution of the NPA Act, section 8 sub-sections j, l, x, to protect stakeholders’ investments.

Fifteen years later, one can attest to modest achievements by the JV partnerships, especially the improvement in safer and deeper channels for the concessionaires’ strive for increased throughput volumes.

For example, whereas the cargo throughput in 2005 was 44.9m metric tons, by 2014 it had risen to 84.9m metric tons. Also in 2014, the Maersk Caldiz, the largest container vessel to call in Nigerian ports, began regular calls at Lagos and Onne ports following the depth of -13.5m and 14m achieved by LCM and BCC in Lagos and Bonny, respectively.

Other large vessels drawing deep draughts such as Maersk/West Africa Maxima and the Total FPSO, Egina have also called at Lagos and other ports in recent times.

In addition, the BCC, which handles Bonny/Port Harcourt pilotage district, has made it easier for LNG vessels (which form one of the core revenue-earning sources for NPA) to navigate the channel safely.

These unprecedented achievements, to my mind, are foundations for growth and further improvement and the system that sustains them ought not to be lightly cast away or dismantled without a robust Plan B.

Conclusion

Thus, it is not wise to just ask NPA to resume in-house management of the channels if in the end, the Authority’s corporate bureaucracy jeopardizes or can be claimed to have jeopardized the movement of ships in the pilotage districts or other lawful operations of the concessionaires which, under the lease agreements, are required to remit annual lease fees, royalties and other levies supposedly accrued from successful operations at the terminals.

What if it is proven in court that NPA’s underperformance in channels and berths management led to lowered incomes of the concessionaires, will the Authority still stand well to successfully claim those fees, royalties, and levies unchallenged?

Would the concessionaires not be right to seek variations of their payment obligations if their ships began to run aground or if their shipping schedules were unduly affected because of draught restrictions caused by NPA’s in-house handling of the channels?

These were some of the reasons for emplacing the channel management joint venture partnerships in the first place.

In fact, the recent newspaper publications by NPA (14 November 2016) which invited consultants to bid for the dredging and channel design optimization studies aimed at a comprehensive review plan of the Bonny/Port Harcourt, Calabar and Lagos pilotage districts and seeking to emplace optimal efficiencies signposted the Authority’s proactive desire for the provision of safe, navigable and cost-effective channels.

This underscores the fact that the channels must not be allowed to fall into the hands of untested, unproven, or quack management that lack proper technical proficiency and track record.

In sum, it is concerning that if care is not taken, the fallouts of politics can threaten the port and maritime industry at its nascent stage of development.

Efforts must be made to avoid taking steps that are inconsistent with the internationally attested program of concessions which have proved altruistic, progressive, and yielded substantial gains to Nigeria’s maritime status.

As they say, one step above the sublime is ridiculous. There should be found a way to settle arising disputes in a way that shields from attack the springs of such a well-functioning system as the NPA joint venture partnership arrangements on channel management.

Dr. Chilaka is the publisher of Dredge, Drill & Haul magazine and lectures at the University of Lagos.

ReplyForward

Analyses

The National Single Window Illusion: Why phase two cannot succeed on paper

Monday Discourse with Nasiru Ibrahim

The official rollout of Phase One of the National Single Window (NSW) was heralded as a monumental leap toward a paperless, automated trade ecosystem.

On paper and within executive dashboards, the achievements are clear: the serialization of Licenses, Certificates, and Permits (LCPO), streamlined electronic manifest transmissions, and integrated risk management for primary regulators like SON and NAFDAC.

Yet, as the steering committee aggressively prepares for the imminent deployment of Phase Two, a severe operational reality check is required.

The claim that the Single Window has successfully “taken off” remains a purely administrative illusion when measured against the brutal, manual friction remaining at our terminal gates.

The core vulnerability of the current transition is the absolute failure to align digital front-end clearances with physical back-end enforcement.

Importers are successfully navigating the centralized National Single Window Portal, obtaining official electronic green lights, only to watch their consignments get trapped by manual human greed the moment the cargo hits the access roads.

Phase Two promises end-to-end electronic customs clearance, full payment digitization, and automated interoperability with the Nigeria Customs Service’s new B’Odogwu Unified Customs Management System.

However, if the federal administration continues to pour billions into software updates while leaving parallel manual check-points unpunished, Phase Two will simply become a highly expensive digital facade masking an archaic extortion regime.

True trade facilitation is not a technological achievement; it is a direct function of political will.

The integration of advanced platforms like B’Odogwu across major commands like Apapa and Tin Can proves that our regulatory arms possess the technical capability to automate. The problem is cultural and financial.

Entrenched administrative empires are deliberately preserving parallel manual structures because documentation loops, artificial delays, and manufactured compliance flags remain incredibly lucrative.

For the National Single Window to transition from a policy delusion into a genuine economic catalyst, the state must move past cosmetic celebrations.

The presidency must deploy the executive power required to completely outlaw physical interventions outside the approved digital framework and enforce severe punitive consequences for any agency chief who authorizes parallel verification processes.

Until the gate complies with the portal, the National Single Window project remains grounded.

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja

Analyses

The National Single Window illusion: Why phase two is dead on arrival

Chief Nasiru Ibrahim

Tomorrow on Monday Discourse with Nasiru Ibrahim, I am dropping part three of my maritime audit, ‘The Single Window Illusion: Why Phase Two is Already Grounded.

For months, our regulatory class has hidden behind the glossy public relations of automated portals, celebrating the ‘take-off’ of Phase One.

But a cold look at the raw data reveals a terrifying truth: we are running a digitised facade over a broken, manual rent-seeking ecosystem.

Tomorrow , I shall be exposing the massive operational disconnect between the new B’Odogwu Customs System and the brutal, manual greed at the terminal gates.

You cannot claim to master trade velocity when parallel checkpoints, erratic human intervention, and bridge shakedowns are hardcoded into the Apapa corridor.

Tomorrow, we strip away the illusions and confront the structural arithmetic holding our supply chains hostage.

Lock your dials on this platform. The clock is ticking.

Analyses

Dual clearing: The secret racket killing Single Window

Monday Discourse with Nasiru Ibrahim

Following my recent exposure of the manual shakedowns trapping the National Single Window, we must now look at the deeper, institutional civil war rendering this multi-billion naira portal useless.

True port modernization is measured by the complete eradication of manual physical interventions, not by the mere proliferation of web portals.

As Nigeria aggressively pushes the operational boundaries of its digital trade infrastructure to meet international benchmarks, an objective policy audit reveals a glaring structural disconnect.

The ongoing implementation strategy focuses almost entirely on software acquisition and portal integration while completely ignoring the brutal institutional resistance embedded within the primary regulatory agencies.

This critical blind spot is turning a premier trade facilitation tool into a redundant administrative layer.

The core operational trap of the current framework is the deliberate preservation of parallel manual verification structures.

For a single window system to function optimally, every participating agency—including the Nigeria Customs Service, NAFDAC, SON, and the NDLEA—must entirely surrender their independent, siloed databases to a unified digital risk assessment engine.

Instead, what obtains across Nigerian maritime gateways is an absurd system of dual processing.

An importer clears his cargo through the centralized digital portal and receives an official electronic release, only to encounter multiple physical enforcement teams, specialized task forces, and roaming federal operations units stationed just meters outside the terminal gates, demanding a manual re-examination of the exact same consignment.

This structural contradiction completely defeats the entire purpose of trade facilitation.

It exposes the fact that the primary resistance to port automation is not technological, but cultural and financial.

The manual desk architecture remains incredibly lucrative for a network of entrenched interests who profit directly from artificial delays, manufactured non-compliance flags, and complex documentation loops.

By allowing these parallel manual structures to co-exist with the digital portal, policymakers have effectively trapped the maritime industry in a loop of perpetual inefficiency.

The digital dashboard shows a green light of completion, but the physical reality on the Port access roads remains gridlocked by manual human greed, where electronic clearances are routinely ignored in favour of physical bargaining.

For the National Single Window to transition from an institutional delusion into a genuine economic catalyst, the federal administration must deploy the political will to completely outlaw physical interventions and dismantle the rogue checkpoints that neutralize the power of digital trade.

We must move past the cosmetic celebrations of launching new portals and confront the administrative empires actively sabotaging the ease of doing business.

The government must establish strict punitive consequences for any agency chief who authorizes parallel verification processes outside the approved digital framework.

Until the state enforces absolute inter-agency data integration and aggressively punishes units running parallel manual rackets, the single window will remain an expensive digital facade masking an archaic, paper-based extortion regime.

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja