Headlines

NPA set to review concession agreement over faulty 2006 lease terms with terminal operators

— as terminal operators fail to remit $852m, N1. 8b due to encumbrances

The Eyewitness Reporter

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has declared that it has gotten consultancy from the World Bank for review of the concession agreements which would be free from any form of encumbrances.

The review was necessitated by what the NPA said was the faulty concession agreement that the federal government signed with the port concessionaires in 2006.

Explaining the unremitted sum of $852m, N1. 8b by the terminal operators to the federal government, the Managing Director of the NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko, said that the port concessionaires refused to remit these sums due to the encumbrances fostered on them by the federal government in the concession agreement.

Bello-Koko, who was speaking before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, absolved the NPA of any complicity in the unremitted sum.

The Office of the Auditor General of the Federation had in the 2019 Audit Report, alleged that NPA did not collect remittances which amounted to $852m and N1.8bn from terminal operators.

The Senate Committee on Public Accounts, on the strength of the audit queries against NPA on Tuesday, directed its Managing Director, Mohammed Bello-Koko, and other management staff, to appear before it unfailingly within 48 hours.

In response to the committee’s directive, the Managing Director of NPA explained to the committee that the lump sums of $852m and N1.8bn, raised in the queries, were an accumulation of unremittances from private port operators who came on board through 2006 concession agreement.

He explained that faulty concession agreements signed with the private operators by the Federal Government in 2006, largely accounted for the unremittances NPA is being held responsible for today.

Bello-Koko said, “The $852m and N1.8bn unremittance by private operators to NPA, are largely caused by faulty concession agreements the Federal Government signed with them in 2006 when the ports were concessioned.

“The concession agreements were faulty in the sense that some of the operators are facing encumbrances in different ways to cover the space concessioned for them which also encumbered them to remit what is due from them to NPA.

“The encumbrances in question range from the inaccessibility of some portions of areas leased, by concessionaire, communal encumbrance and volume change or turnage amount.”

He told the committee members that the Federal Government that signed the concession agreement with the private operators even contributed to encumbrances faced by the concessionaires at the beginning by not removing structures that belonged to it from the right of way of the affected concessionaires.

The NPA MD added, “Out of the $852m, going by our in-house assessment, $504m are accumulated unremitted levies due to encumbered areas.

“However, we have been able to recover $232.2m and N269.4m from the N1.8bn.

On the second query of outstanding debts of $ 67.45 million and N32.266bn, the NPA boss told the committee members that the debts were not incurred by the NPA but by the defunct Nigerian Shippers Councils whose debtors are no longer traceable.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Aliyu Wadada, told the NPA boss to furnish the committee with their financial statement and way out for the government to write off the legacy debts.

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.