Headlines

Only vessels operating illegally in Warri port channel run aground— NPA

Bello-Koko, NPA MD

The Eyewitness Reporter

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has clarified the position on some of the vessels said to be running around along the Warri port channels, saying those vessels are not abreast of the safety measures put in place to aid safe navigation as their operations are illegal.

According to the NPA, although the Escravos breakwaters constructed to prevent the siltation of the Warri channels collapsed decades ago, it said the current management of the Authority, led by Muhammad Bello-Koko, the Managing Director of NPA, has concluded the survey and mapping of the channel and is at the conclusive stages of securing relevant approvals for the best financing option to fund its reconstruction.

The NPA said the authority has put mitigants in place to ensure the safe berthing of legally operating vessels in the spirit of trade facilitation.

“The up-to-date local and international training, simulation, and maneuverability competence building of the highly experienced pilots of the Authority has ensured zero incidence of vessels running aground and enabled the safe berthing on Friday, July 14, 2023, of inbound vessels MT Zonda and MT Stellar and outbound vessels MT Duke, MT Vardar, and MT Igbinosa, with six (6) vessels at anchorage outbound and inbound for Bonny Island, Koko, and Escravos.

“Conscious of the peculiarities of the Warri channel, the Authority procured and installed adequate buoys for Warri, realigned the entrance buoys, docked and reclassified vessels, and stipulated frequent simulation training and retraining for all the pilotage crew to enable them to respond to the exigencies of the channel.

The NPA claimed that the occasionally reported incidences of vessels running aground cannot impede the channel as they are vessels operating illegally without NPA Marine Pilots onboard and ran aground only because they veered off the channel and safety-marked areas due to incompetence.

“To enhance its domain awareness capability to detect and frontally keep illegal vessels at bay, the Authority recently awarded consultancy for the installation of Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) across all its Port locations, and the first phase is already complete.

“It will be recalled that the Authority recently acquired and deployed security patrol boats and intensified its collaborations with relevant security agencies to stem the activities of such illegal vessels whose activities result in such breaches.

The NPA management however assured all stakeholders doing business legally in the Warri Pilotage of navigational safety despite the urgent need for the breakwater reconstruction.

“While we are working assiduously under the guidance of the Ministry of Transportation and Federal Government to sustainably and comprehensively address the challenges of all Delta Ports, we have put measures in place to ensure nothing impedes business continuity for all those operating within our safety and security rules”. Bello-Koko declared.

Analyses

The Anchor of Dependency: Rethinking Nigeria’s Port Financing Strategy

Monday Discourse with Ibrahim Nasiru

The recent Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) conference in Lagos concluded with a dizzying array of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure promises.

Amidst the boardroom handshakes and official communiques, a familiar theme emerged: West Africa requires tens of billions of dollars to build the “Ports of the Future.”

For Nigeria, a nation grappling with aging brownfield infrastructure and the pressure to fully optimize its deep seaports, the question of infrastructure is no longer about what to build, but how to pay for it.

For decades, Nigeria’s approach to Port development has been tethered to a traditional anchor of dependency, an over-reliance on foreign loans, lopsided concession frameworks, and external development contracts.

If the nation is to truly unlock the economic sovereignty promised by the Blue Economy, it must critically re-evaluate its Port financing strategy, shifting away from debt-heavy models toward aggressive domestic capital mobilization and genuine structural reforms that address how we handle our internal maritime revenues.

Historically, major Port expansions in Sub-Saharan Africa have followed a predictable financial script.

A sovereign state secures a massive bilateral loan, frequently from foreign development banks, backed by state guarantees or the projected revenues of the Port asset itself.

On the surface, this model delivers immediate gratification: shiny new gantry cranes, dredged channels, and modern breakwaters.

Below the surface, however, this architecture creates a cycle of financial vulnerability.

When Port assets are financed through rigid, foreign-denominated debt, the pressure to service that debt often overrides the Port’s primary economic mandate, which is to lower the cost of doing business.

High debt-servicing costs force Port authorities to maintain punitive tariff structures, expensive regulatory charges, and inflated berthing fees.

Consequently, while the infrastructure appears world-class, the Port becomes economically uncompetitive, driving shipping lines to cheaper regional alternatives and defeating the purpose of the initial investment.

To break this loop, Nigeria must confront a glaring fiscal paradox sitting right inside its balance sheet: the architecture of the Nigerian Ports Authority’s (NPA) internal revenue framework.

As revealed in recent National Assembly budget defenses under Managing Director Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, the NPA is projecting a staggering ₦1.489 trillion in internally generated revenue (IGR) for the 2026 fiscal year, hot on the heels of generating nearly ₦2 trillion in 2025.

The agency is a financial powerhouse, generating enormous wealth from ship dues, cargo fees, and concession tariffs.

Yet, because of rigid fiscal remittance laws, a massive chunk of this liquidity is swallowed directly by the federation’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) and swept straight into the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

The NPA is effectively treated as a cash cow to finance federal budget deficits rather than being allowed to legally retain and reinvest its own earnings back into the infrastructure that generates them.

Forcing an agency to remit massive sums to the federal treasury while simultaneously asking it to borrow foreign capital or beg for funding via the Central Bank just to dredge a channel or rebuild a collapsing berth is an unsustainable contradiction.

True financial independence requires a sweeping legislative rethink of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to allow the NPA to establish a dedicated, ring-fenced infrastructure retention fund.

If the agency could legally retain just 20 to 30 percent more of its trillions in actual collections specifically for a Port Modernization Sinking Fund, it could fully self-finance the urgently needed overhauls of the 100-year-old Apapa Port and the decaying infrastructure at Tin Can Island without adding a single dollar of foreign debt to Nigeria’s sovereign balance sheet.

Furthermore, this internal liquidity could be used as equity to issue local currency maritime infrastructure bonds on the domestic capital market, allowing Nigerian pension funds to invest in an asset class that generates predictable, long-term, inflation-hedged cash flows.

Ultimately, breaking the anchor of dependency requires moving past the illusion that a nation must always look outward or borrow its way to maritime dominance.

True Port efficiency cannot coexist with a system that starves its primary trade gateway of operational liquidity in the name of national revenue extraction.

As Nigeria positions itself to capture the trade volumes of a developing continent, its leadership must realize that financial engineering is just as critical as civil engineering.

We must design financing models that allow the maritime sector to feed itself first before feeding the national treasury.

Until we cut the chains of debt-heavy external financing and reform our internal revenue retention laws, our Ports will not function as engines of economic liberation, but rather as highly sophisticated toll gates filtering both national wealth and foreign debt back to external creditors.

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

Headlines

NPA: Starving the goose that lays the golden eggs

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru

Tomorrow, on Monday Discourse, Ibrahim Nasiru looks at what he describes as the paradox in the financing system of the Nigerian Ports Authority( NPA).

An agency which lays the golden eggs that feed the nation, yet has to borrow from external creditors to fix its infrastructures.

On Monday Discourse, Nasiru advises government to rethink Nigeria’s Port Financing Strategy

“The NPA is projecting a staggering ₦1.489 trillion in revenue for 2026. Yet, why are we still looking outward to borrow billions of dollars for Port Modernization?

“The truth is, Nigeria’s Ports are trapped in a fiscal paradox.

“We treat the NPA as a cash cow to fund federal deficits, sweeping its massive trillions into the central treasury, while leaving our 100-year-old Ports to starve of the vital liquidity needed for self maintenance.

“Forcing an agency to bleed cash to the treasury while begging foreign creditors for infrastructure loans is an unsustainable contradiction.

“If we are serious about the Blue Economy, it’s time for a legislative rethink that allows internal revenue retention for a dedicated Port Modernization Fund.

Read Nasiru’s analysis on why Nigerian Ports must feed themselves before they can sustainably feed the nation.

Keep a date with Nasiru on Monday Discourse tomorrow ,Monday, June 1st, 2026.

It’s a must read

Headlines

NRC suspends Warri- Itakpe train service over operational concerns

Funso OLOJO, Editor

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has announced the temporary suspension of Warri–Itakpe Train Service (WITS) due to what the management described as operational exigency and technical advice from the Corporation’s Engineers.

The temporary suspension, according to a public statement by the NRC, has become necessary to enable the Corporation carry out critical operational assessments aimed at ensuring continued safety, reliability, and improved service delivery on the corridor.

“The NRC regrets the inconvenience this development may cause passengers and other stakeholders, and assures the public that efforts are currently ongoing to resolve the issues within the shortest possible time.

“Passengers and intending travelers will be duly informed before the end of the week on the date for the resumption of normal train operations.

“The Corporation remains committed to safe, efficient, and customer-friendly rail services across the country and appreciates the understanding, patience, and continued support of the public during this period” the NRC declared.