Commentaries

Nigeria’s Loss of IMO Seat: One Defeat Too Many

Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation

Last week Friday, Nigeria once again lost its bid to regain the Category C seat of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in a keenly contested election in London Headquarters of the world body.

Last weekend’s loss makes it the sixth consecutive failed attempt which Nigeria made to recapture the global crown it lost in 2011.

The latest loss was particularly painful and dramatic as the country lost against high expectations and hope for a better outing.

Disappointed stakeholders have since then been making wild guesses as to why Nigeria has consistently become a serial loser at the IMO Council seat elections.

While some believed that the maritime administration in Nigeria has not done enough to make the country merit a seat to dine with serious maritime nations in the world, others believed the loss was an unfair reflection of efforts of the present management of NIMASA to shore up our maritime fortunes.

Not a few stakeholders gave Nigeria a chance to clinch the coveted position which it narrowly lost to Kenya by one vote in 2019.

Nonetheless, we are saddened by this latest loss given the level of improvements we thought our maritime administration has recorded in recent times.

Before this time, the previous losses have mainly been attributed to the notoriety of Nigeria’s waters for pirate attacks as well as the shambled state of our ship registry.

Our Search and Rescue operations were also blamed while the poor level of compliance of port infrastructures to the ISPS code was not spared.

But in recent times, the present management of NIMASA led by Dr Bashir Jamoh has shown uncommon commitment and courage to tackle these challenges.

We can recall that incidents of pirate attacks on our waters drastically reduced early this year due to the collaborative efforts of NIMASA with the Navy.

The notorious Gulf of Guinea was calmer in recent times due to the conscious collaborative efforts and strategic partnership which Nigeria had with foreign Navies whose presence has helped to reduce the incidence of piracy in the region.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) even acknowledged this feat in its quarterly assessment reports.

Incidents of piracy in the first nine months of 2021 are the lowest reported in 17 years.

This represents 77 percent decrease in incidents between 2021 and 2020 and 95 percent reduction from 2018. “The IMB also reported a 39 percent reduction in piracy and armed robbery incidents in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG),” said Jimoh.

To complement its security efforts on Nigerian waters, NIMASA launched an operation of a modern and sophisticated security architecture known as Command, Control Computer Communication and Information System(C4i).

This is to create maximum security, strong surveillance as well as low freight costs that will boost the confidence of investors and port users.

Also, the NIMASA management took a bold step to revamp the ship registry which has for some years been a disincentive for ships to fly Nigeria’s flag.

On the ISPS code compliance level of Nigerian Ports facilities, the United States Coast Guards (USCG) commended NIMASA as the Designated Authority (DA) over the improved compliance level attained by the country which was rated at 90 percent.

The Search and Rescue operations of the agency have recorded significant milestones in recent times with its rescue operations to salvage distressed ships, passengers, and crew members.

To put the icing on the cake, the Federal Government, early this year, launched the multi-billion dollars security apparatus called deep blue project which was a revolutionary security architecture to sweep our waters of criminal elements.

The project, being driven by NIMASA, involves all other security agencies whose personnel are equipped with the sophisticated hardware and assets acquired under the project to engage criminals on our waters and keep our waters safe.

The international community even commended this security initiative which it confessed has considerable calming effects on the raging Gulf of Guinea.

With all these efforts to improve maritime security and Safety on our waters, which is the core function of any maritime administration in the world and for which Nigeria through NIMASA has acquitted itself, what more does the world want?

The efforts of the incumbent NIMASA management in maritime security have even been acknowledged by the IMO when the body described Nigeria as the most improved maritime nation in the sub-region.

Why then are all these efforts by Nigeria not rewarded with a victory at the IMO elections?

As far as we are concerned, Nigeria lost the elections to grand international conspiracy and criminal gang-up by her jealous and ingrate neighbours.

We are not by any means suggesting that our challenges in the maritime industry are over.

On the contrary, we still need to firm up on some other key areas of administration and operations to put the industry on a sound footing, especially the grey areas identified in the audit exercise by the IMO.

But our position is that, unlike the previous defeats which Nigeria has suffered since 2011, the current loss is most unjustified and unkindest cut given the sincerity of purpose of Jamoh- led management in its reformation agenda in the industry aimed at correcting some of the administrative and operational lapses that had hitherto caused our failures at the IMO Council elections.

Despite this loss, however, we would like to commend Nigeria nay NIMASA for fighting a good battle.

They have put up a good show.

To us Nigeria didn’t lose as a result of administrative ineptitude and operational laxity as some critics may want us to believe but instead, we lost to bad international politics heavily steeped in “bad belle”.

We want to encourage Jamoh and his team not to be despondent nor allow their fighting spirit to be dampened as a result of this defeat which to us, was “against the run of play”.

Rather, the management should go back to the drawing board and commence immediate preparations for the next IMO council elections in 2023.

The defeat should also spur NIMASA to improve on its current drive to reform the maritime industry that will make us break the chains of defeat in subsequent elections.

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Commentaries

National Single Window: Beyond analogue horizon

Ibrahim Nasiru

Tomorrow on Monday Discourse with Nasiru Ibrahim, my National Single Window series Part Four drops: ‘The Green Port Imperative: Beyond the Analogue Horizon.’

True automation cannot stop at front-end software like the new B’Odogwu Customs System.

It must extend to the hard, physical operations on the ground.

You cannot claim to build a modern maritime gateway while thousands of diesel-guzzling trucks remain trapped in manual bottlenecks along the Apapa and Tin Can access corridors.

Tomorrow, we look past the paper declarations and audit the raw infrastructure execution required to save our maritime future.

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

Commentaries

Beyond the presidential signature: NPERA and new enforcement reality of Nigerian Ports

Ibrahim Nasiru

President Bola Tinubu’s assent to the Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) Bill, 2026, is the single most consequential legislative event in the modern history of our maritime domain.

Announced on August 13, 2026, by the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Dr. Pius Akutah, this law marks the definitive end of regulatory hesitation at our Port gates.

For over a decade, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council operated under a crippling structural handicap.

Drafted as an interim economic regulator by policy directive in 2014, the Council was essentially a referee without a whistle.

It relied heavily on moral suasion, diplomatic mediation, and advocacy to get things done.

Multinational shipping lines and terminal concessionaires knew this systemic weakness and exploited it.

They routinely dragged the Council to court to stall enforcement, buy time, and protect their arbitrary local charges.

NPERA completely dismantles that analogue era of compromise. This is not the creation of a fresh, bloated bureaucratic agency; it is a statutory evolution.

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council has officially been weaponized into an independent, executive umpire backed by the full raw enforcement powers of an Act of Parliament.

The immediate message to the maritime community is loud and direct: the era of arbitrary tariff regimes and parallel pricing structures is officially dead.

Under the new NPERA framework, the agency holds exclusive statutory powers to approve, review, or freeze Port costs.

Any shipping line or terminal manager attempting to introduce unapproved local handling fees or manipulative demurrage timelines will face immediate, binding legal sanctions.

Crucially, this new law draws a hard line under the chronic agency supremacy tussles that have choked national productivity for years.

The operational boundaries are now mathematically clear. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) remains the technical landlord. NIMASA retains control over safety and marine security. NPERA steps in as the supreme financial and economic regulator.

Furthermore, the introduction of specialized administrative arbitration tribunals means shippers no longer have to endure years of delayed litigation in civilian courts to resolve commercial disputes.

Wrongful container detentions and predatory monopolies can now be penalised within a specialized regulatory framework.

However, stakeholders must understand that this transition operates on a tight bureaucratic clock.

While the policy freeze on unapproved tariffs is immediate, the next 90 days will see the formal gazetting and full asset migration into the new legal structure.

By late 2026, mandatory statutory registration for all active maritime service providers will become an unyielding reality.

The signature on the bill is a massive victory, but paper alone cannot clear a port corridor.

The newly empowered leadership of NPERA must immediately deploy these legal teeth to smash the manual bottlenecks and parallel checkpoints that undermine our trade velocity.

The law has changed, the referee finally has a whistle, and the industry must align with this new enforcement reality.

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

Commentaries

Two years of Dantsoho at NPA: The architecture of efficiency boom

Ibrahim Nasiru

This July, Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho marks exactly two years as the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), providing a vital opportunity to separate institutional noise from actual structural progress.

For decades, Nigeria’s maritime gateways were plagued by massive infrastructural deficits, manual gridlocks, and fragmented policies.

Today, through a deliberate blend of home-grown institutional experience and top-tier academic expertise in maritime technology, Dantsoho is rewriting that narrative from the inside out.

He has successfully shifted the NPA away from reactive firefighting and anchored it firmly on aggressive, infrastructure-led growth.

His two-year legacy is anchored on absolute automation and massive capital injection.

By securing a landmark $1 billion in dedicated modernization funding for the comprehensive rehabilitation of aging gateways and aggressively spearheading the National Single Window infrastructure, his office is systematically eliminating the human bottlenecks that feed desk corruption at the Ports.

This structural renaissance is not just about aesthetics; it is about rebuilding the foundational complexes of Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, and Calabar to withstand the demands of modern global trade.

The financial reward for this fiscal discipline is already evident, with the authority confidently pacing toward an unprecedented ₦1.489 trillion revenue peak for the 2026 fiscal year.

This massive revenue trajectory cements Nigeria’s role as West Africa’s undisputed trade hub and proves that the administration’s fiscal leaks are being blocked effectively through digital transformation.

By driving the final operational phases of the Port Community System (PCS) to anchor the newly approved National Single Window, Dantsoho is systematically transforming the clearing ecosystem from a manual bureaucrat’s playground into a highly transparent, hyper-efficient digital gateway.

While local operators and stakeholders continue to demand closer engagement, Dantsoho’s strategic blueprint demonstrates that his focus remains entirely on delivering the long-awaited structural environment where every maritime stakeholder can seamlessly thrive.

Sustainable stakeholder engagement isn’t about cosmetic public relations; it is about deploying top-tier technocratic expertise to build a Port ecosystem where trade flows seamlessly, predictably, and profitably.

With automated transshipment channels opening up to landlocked neighbouring countries via Lekki Deep Seaport, the foundation for total ease of doing business has finally been poured.

What makes Dantsoho’s career worth celebrating over the last twenty-four months is the climate in which he has delivered these reforms.

In an era where international shipping lines are highly sensitive to operational delays, the NPA has aggressively reduced ship turnaround times and improved cargo throughput.

This latest two-year milestone is a timely reminder that while maritime challenges are complex, the value of raw human integrity, deep institutional memory, and consistent high-quality output can never be replaced.

Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho has proven that he is not just a placeholder in office, but an architect building the future of Nigerian maritime trade.

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru, public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja