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Proposed Nigeria Coast Guard: The Dangers ahead — Maritime expert.

Funso OLOJO 

An expert in maritime safety, who did not want his name in print, has warned of the dire consequences should the  National Assembly passes the Nigeria Coast guard bill into law.
It could be recalled that the bill, which is currently before the National Assembly,  seeks to establish a military service which is a branch of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, to ensure maritime safety that will domicile under the ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.
The expert, who is a Marine Engineer and  a retired civil servant from one of the agencies of government, claimed that the bill, if passed into law, will compound the muted unhealthy rivalry and competition among the agencies of governments such as the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency( NIMASA), Nigeria National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council.
According to him, the proposed body will rival the Nigerian Navy and may also lead to the deadly clash of these two armed groups on the Nigerian waters.
He also warned that if the proposed Nigerian Coast guard is modelled after the United States Coast Guard (USCG), that may lead to irrelevance  or total annihilation of NIMASA .
” If you model the proposed Nigerian Coast Guard after US Coast Guard, then you have to abolish NIMASA or the body take over NIMASA job completely.
“This is because in the US, the Coast Guard does all the safety administration.
” What the US Coast Guard is doing is what NIMASA does in Nigeria.
” If that is your model, you have failed from the beginning. You are scrapping NIMASA because you are going to duplicate the jobs of NIMASA.
“In America, the USCG is the apex body that is responsible to the IMO which NIMASA is.
“So the moment you bring American model of Coast Guard to Nigeria, NIMASA is gone.
” That means another body will be doing the safety administration job of NIMASA.
“The proponents of this bill have not sat down to look at technicalities and technical implications of the introduction of the new body.
” They are only trying to bring in the box of the Coast guard without the contents, the technicalities involved.
” The experts such as master mariners, maritime engineers, ship owners, marine engineers, industry operators should sit down and look at the implications of the proposed legislation.
” But what we have before the National Assembly is the box, which is the Coast Guard but what is going to be put in the box have never been discussed.
” The substance of the bill has not been discussed.
” To me, that is deception, if we fail to sit down and look at its technicalities.
” If you are looking for the American model of Coast guard, then there would be no NIMASA because there is no Maritime Administration in the US.
” It is the USCG that is maritime administration who does survey, registration of ships, Port state and flag state control.
” If you bring American model of Coast guard, then you does survey, who does ship registration, your port state and flag state inspection.
” Who is responsible to curtail marine pollution on your waters?
” In any maritime nation, the maritime safety is handled by its maritime administration like NIMASA while maritime security is handled by the country’s Navy.
” So what does the proposed Nigerian Coast guard do unless its functions overlap with that of Navy and NIMASA”
The marine engineer warned that if we  bring the Coast Guard which the Navy said it does not want, there would be friction between the two armed groups which may result into conflicts at sea.
He claimed that those retired naval officers who support the bill are those who are eyeing to be recruited into the Coast Guard and want to become Coast Guard General because they are looking for job .
“Those retired Naval officers supporting the bill are looking for job because those who are still in the service will not support the bill”
” Which roles are the proposed Nigerian Coast Guard is going to play that the Nigerian Navy said it’s tired of playing” the maritime expert asked rhetorically.
He believed that if the Nigerian Navy is well funded and equipped with the necessary tools and infrastructure, it will be able to adequately protect Nigerian waters.
” But they deliberately underfunded the Navy, they deliberately ill- equipped the Navy and they are now bringing in another body to split the Navy functions because they are all eyeing NIMASA money” the Marine Engineer alleged.
He claimed that the proposed body is likely to be funded by NIMASA.
” This is the money the proponents of this proposed body is eyeing” he further claimed.
He then wondered what will happen to NIMASA and Navy if this bill is pushed through.
” NIMASA is still facing challenges of overlapping functions from NIWA, Nigerian Shippers’ Council and NPA which are yet to be resolved and you are now bringing in another body which will complicate these problems on the sea”
” All these will cause NIMASA unnecessary distractions from its core functions”
” Is this how we want to get category C seat in the IMO ” the retired civil servant queried.
He said that in countries such as India where they have Navies , maritime administrations and coast guards, their functions are clearly spelt out without overlap.
“But such was not the case in Nigeria”
” We are already in a mess due to the overlapping functions of the agencies under the ministry of Marine and Blue Economy which render them ineffective.
“We have overlap functions between NIMASA and NIWA which have not been addressed and causing tension between the two agencies.
“There is also an issue between NIMASA and Nigerian Shippers’ Council because the Nigerian Shipping and Economic Recovery Agency bill of Shippers’ Council before the National Assembly contains most of the shipping development functions of NIMASA”
” There is also the problem of overlapping functions between NIMASA and NPA.
” If you lack the capacity as a supervising minister to address these challenges among your agencies, why bringing another body to complicate the issues on ground?
” The unhealthy rivalry among the agencies under the ministry of Marine and Blue Economy is so enormous that the ministry should not compound the already bad situation by pushing for a coast guard that will come to mess up the already bad situation ” the Marine Engineer declared.
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Beyond The Communique: Can West Africa’s $27 billion port rhetoric Outrun gridlock?

The Monday Discourse with Nasiru 
The dust has settled on the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) conference hosted by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in Lagos last week.
 For three days, 18th to 20th May 2026, Maritime Executives, Regional Ministers, and Portuguese Administrators traded optimism, signed agreements, and toasted to the future.
The headlines if not hallucinating, were intoxicating: a staggering $27 billion committed to Regional Port Infrastructure, grand declarations of transforming into sustainable “Blue Economy” engines, and lofty goals to replicate the seamless digital models of Rotterdam and Singapore.
Yet, for the average importer, shipping line agent, or haulage driver navigating the chaotic access roads of Apapa, Tin Can, or Luanda, the disconnect between boardroom rhetoric and dockyard reality remains jarring.
While the Lagos conference successfully demonstrated Nigeria’s diplomatic hosting prowess under the leadership of NPA Managing Director, Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, it also exposed a deeper regional vulnerability.
West and Central African ports are masterful at planning, but historically abysmal at executing.
If this $27 billion infrastructure boom is to be anything more than a monumental paper tiger, regional leadership must pivot immediately from policy curation to aggressive, unforgiving execution.
On paper, the sub-region is undergoing a maritime renaissance. We are told of Guinea’s massive $20 billion Simandou-Morebaya project, Cote d’Ivoire’s $2 billion Port San Pedro expansion, and Nigeria’s own $1.5 billion Lekki Deep Sea Port, alongside fresh pledges to modernize aging brownfield terminals.
But a Port is not merely a collection of deep berths, breakwaters, and expensive gantry cranes. It is an intricate, living logistical ecosystem.
Building a multi-billion-dollar Deep-Sea Port while leaving the surrounding multimodal transport network broken is an exercise in futility.
Lekki Deep Sea Port, despite its state-of-the-art infrastructure, still struggles with optimal evacuation routes.
True regional competitiveness will not be won by the nation that signs the largest infrastructure contract; it will be won by the nation that successfully connects its berths to functioning rail lines, Inland Dry Ports (IDPs), and uncongested highways.
Until cargo can move from a vessel to an inland destination seamlessly, these multi-billion-dollar investments are simply monumentally expensive parking lots for containers.
The conference highly praised the “Rotterdam-Singapore data-exchange model” as the blueprint for eliminating West Africa’s notoriously high cargo dwell times.
 In Nigeria, officials proudly showcased the roll-out of the National Single Window initiative and the Port Community System.
But let us be objective: West African ports do not suffer from a lack of digital concepts; they suffer from a lack of institutional compliance.
For years, “Single Windows” have been launched, rebranded, and relaunched, yet manual interventions persist.
Why? Because automation directly threatens the lucrative, entrenched economies of corruption, extortive  human contact, and bureaucratic bottlenecks.
 Replicating Singapore requires more than buying expensive software; it requires the political will to strip corrupt agencies of their physical inspection monopolies.
If Customs administrations and border agencies can still demand the physical, manual opening of containers despite digital clearances, then the “Paperless Port” remains an expensive mirage.
A commendable takeaway from the Lagos summit was the celebration of Nigeria’s Deep Blue Project, which has successfully suppressed piracy in the Gulf of Guinea for three consecutive years.
This is a massive victory for regional security. However, security is only a facilitator of trade, not trade itself.
While the waters may be safer from pirates, the land corridors remain plagued by a different kind of piracy: systemic extortion at border checkpoints, overlapping regulatory charges, and severe cargo diversion.
It is an open secret that landlocked neighbors like Niger, Chad, and Mali often bypass geographically closer Nigerian ports in favor of Beninese, Togolese, or Ghanaian corridors.
 Why? Because the total cost of cargo clearance, measured in both time and bribes, makes Nigerian routes economically punitive.
Decentralizing operations to Nigeria’s Eastern Ports, as proposed by the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, will fail to yield results if the same predatory regulatory culture is simply exported from Lagos to Port Harcourt, Warri, Onne, and Calabar.
If the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa wants to avoid meeting next year to lament the same old problems, the AGENDA must change today.
First, the NPA and its regional peers must tie Port Key Performance indicators (KPIs) strictly to cargo dwell times, not revenue generation.
A Port’s primary job is efficiency, not tax collection. Second, the implementation of the National Single Window must be backed by executive enforcement that legally penalizes any agency insisting on manual intervention outside automated channels.
Finally, regional integration must move past the ECOWAS protocol paperwork. There must be a unified, digitized tracking system that allows a container cleared in Lagos to move to Niamey without facing a dozen predatory checkpoints.
The Lagos communique was a beautiful piece of literature. But literature does not offload vessels, clear containers, or lower the cost of doing business.
 West Africa’s maritime sector does not need more summits, boards, or committees. It needs an execution squad.
Until we match our boardroom eloquence with dockyard discipline, the “Ports of the Future” will remain a luxury we can only read about in conference brochures.
Chief Ibrahim Nasiru , a Public Affairs Analyst, writes from Abuja
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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.
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Headlines

Sallah celebration: Osun govt offers free train ride to indigenes as NRC increases Lagos–Ibadan Train Trips for Sallah

Gloria Odion, maritime reporter 
The Osun State government has made full payment to the Nigerian Railway Corporation( NRC) for the use of its narrow gauge rail services to transport the indigenes of the state free of charge for the Sallah celebration.
The annual gesture was confirmed by the management of the Corporation while announcing a temporary increase  in train services on the Lagos–Ibadan Train Service (LITS) corridor for Tuesday, May 26, 2026, ahead of the Sallah celebration.
The NRC revealed that the Osun government free train ride will be on its narrow gauge corridor.
The special train will depart from Iddo Station, Lagos, on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, while the return trip from Osogbo to Lagos will take place on Thursday, May 28, 2026.
The service, which is usually operated during festive periods, is being sponsored by the Osun State Government through a paid arrangement with the Nigerian Railway Corporation to convey Osun indigenes free of charge for the Sallah celebration.
Meanwhile, the Corporation has announced an adjustment to its schedule on its Lagos–Ibadan Train Service (LITS) corridor for Tuesday, May 26, 2026, ahead of the Sallah
The temporary adjustment is aimed at accommodating the expected increase in passenger movement as many Nigerians travel to celebrate the festive season with their families and loved ones.
Under the special arrangement, the Corporation will operate six train trips on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, instead of the usual four trips currently operated on the corridor.
For the day, train departures from the Lagos end will be at 7:45am, 1:40pm and 4:00pm, while departures from the Ibadan end will be at 8:00am, 10:50am and 4:30pm.
The Management clarified that this arrangement is strictly temporary and applies only to the Sallah travel period.
 Immediately after the celebration, the normal Tuesday timetable of four trips will resume.
Similarly, the recently introduced Thursday six-trip operations will be temporarily adjusted next week, as only four trips will operate on Thursday May,  28th during the period under review.
The regular six-trip Thursday schedule will however resume the following week.
The NRC reassured passengers of its commitment to providing safe, efficient and reliable rail transportation services across the country and wishes all Nigerians a peaceful and memorable Sallah celebration.
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