Analyses

Nigerian Shippers’ Council: An economic regulator as hypocritical arbiter

Emmanuel Jime, NSC Boss

The Eyewitness Reporter

Today, Tuesday, October 24th, 2023, the looming disruption of port operations by the distraught freight forwarders who were protesting what they called a unilateral increase in terminal charges by the terminal operators, was dissipated when all the parties involved in the cargo value chain, especially the freight forwarders, were called for the re-negotiation of the increase.

The Nigerian Shippers’Council, which was said to have approved the initial increase without the involvement of the freight forwarders, beat a quick retreat amidst mounting pressure from the irate freight forwarders and called for a truce between the contending parties.

Yesterday, Monday, October 23rd, under the siege of the rampaging freight forwarders, the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) who had stormed the corporate office of the Nigerian Shippers’Council Council, the Executive Secretary of the council, Emmanuel Jime, had quickly recanted the initial hike, said to be over 600 percent, admitting that there was an error in the process leading to the increase.

Held ” hostage” by the protesting freight forwarders troop, marshaled by the Field Commander, Alhaji Tanko Ibrahim, the National Coordinator, NAGAFF 100 percent Compliance team, Jime agreed that the council had made a mistake.

“There were certain steps that were not proper; so we will review them immediately” Jime admitted while addressing the irate freight forwarders on Monday, October 23rd, 2023.

“I’ll make sure that we re-engage the process in a way that will meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders in the industry.”

“I have personally discovered that our internal mechanism has not been properly implemented in order for us to arrive at the decision that we made.

“We made that decision, I cannot deny it, but the decision was made on the basis of some information that was provided by certain people.

.”We’ll review the decision,”

True to his words, Jime quickly convened a meeting among the terminal operators, shipping companies, and freight forwarders where the parties mutually agreed to a price hike of 400 percent.

With this, all parties were happy and the looming unrest in the port was dispersed.

The whole scenario has exposed the hypocrisy and insincerity of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council which is the economic regulator and statutory arbiter between the terminal operators and the shippers.

By its status and stature, the council is statutorily mandated to protect the interests of shippers against the imperialist tendency of the terminal operators.

It was at a later stage of its creation, that the scope of its functions was expanded to economic regulation which gives it the authority to mediate between the shippers and the service providers in terms of charges and services.

In the build-up to the initial increase which the council was said to have endorsed, why didn’t Jime and his management team do the right thing as espoused by the concession agreement that negotiations on price increase by the terminal operators should involve the shippers as represented by their agents and the terminal operators?

What is the input of the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy who has to endorse the increase as recommended by the shippers council as contained in the concession agreement?

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council had all along been playing the Ostrich as its management kept sealed lips over the template adopted for the initial hike.

It was not until the heat from the agitating freight forwarders was getting unbearable that the Council’s Emmanuel Jime started to make his confession.

Like the politician he is, he was quick to recount the initial flawed process he was involved in order to stave off the looming unsavory consequence.

From the confession made by the Shippers’ Council boss, it was obvious that the council did not involve the freight forwarders in the initial process leading to the 600 percent now-rested hike.

It shows the height of insincerity and an act of complicity on the part of the Shippers ‘Council to have secretly approved the initial hike without following due process.

In as much as the terminal operators have the right to increase their charges, given the prevailing economic situation in the country, the shippers and their freight agents who will bear the brunt of the hike have the right to be part of the negotiation.

This was what the Shippers’Council did today, Tuesday, October 24th, 2023, though belatedly.

If the NAGAFF troop as commandeered by the fiery Tanko Ibrahim had not carried out physical blockage of some terminals and laid a siege on the headquarters of the Shippers’Council in protest, then it goes without saying that the initial hike would have gone unchallenged.

The council, in this matter, had given itself away as a biased and compromised arbiter whose hands have to be forced to do the right thing.

If the council had abinitio followed the due process in this matter, it would have saved the industry the avoidable tension that was generated in the last one week.

One thing stands out: no one, including the freight forwarders, has denied the necessity of a price hike, but the point of friction was the failure of the commercial regulator to toe the line of due diligence.

Unfortunately, the council, by this act of commission or omission, may have sustained a deep cut in its approval rating among the shippers whose interests it was statutorily created to protect and at the same time lost the confidence of the freight forwarders as an impartial arbiter.

Kudos to Tanko Ibrahim and his team who refused to be docile like the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) whose new leadership has displayed an unimaginable level of docility in this cause.

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Analyses

The trillion naira vault: Building political-proof ports for Nigeria

The Monday Discourse with Ibrahim Nasiru focuses on the strategy to lock away the NPA’s port modernisation funds from the groping hands of the politicians in other to avert the calamity which befell the infamous Cabotage Vessels Financing Fund (CVFF)

Following up on the intense national discussion regarding the NPA’s ₦1.489 trillion revenue target, here is a preview of my analysis on how we can structurally lock this massive wealth away from bureaucratic hands.

We cannot allow the historic failure of the Cabotage Vessels Financing Fund (CVFF) to paralyze our economic imagination.

The solution to Port decay isn’t to stop collecting funds, but to change who holds the keys to the vault.

From deploying bankruptcy-remote SPVs to issuing local currency infrastructure bonds backed by pension funds, this piece outlines the exact financial engineering needed to modernize Apapa and Tin Can Island.

Watch out for the full analysis tomorrow.

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

Analyses

Beyond The Lagos Communique: Can West Africa’s $27 Billion Port Rhetoric Outrun Gridlock?

Ibrahim Nasiru

The Monday Discourse with NASIRU focuses on the take away from the just concluded PMAWCA board meeting in Lagos.

Last week, maritime leaders gathered in Lagos for the PMAWCA conference, celebrating a staggering $27 billion infrastructure boom and drawing up plans to replicate the seamless digital models of Rotterdam and Singapore.

But for the average importer, agent, or truck driver trapped in the chaos of Apapa or Tin Can, the disconnect is jarring.

West African Ports are masterful at planning, but historically abysmal at executing.

A multi-billion-dollar Deep Sea Port is just an expensive parking lot for containers if the surrounding rail and road infrastructure remains broken.

True competitiveness will not be won by the nation that signs the largest contract; it will be won by the nation that actually clears a container without corruption, extortion, or manual delays.

It is time to move past courtroom style policy curation and deploy an execution squad.

Read full details tomorrow on why West Africa’s maritime sector needs dockyard discipline over boardroom eloquence.