Is There Deliberate Marginalization Of Eastern Ports To Prosper Lagos?

“Ironically, the majority of shippers (importers and exporters) that use Lagos ports are located in the South East, South-South and Northern parts of country. As a result, these importers pay double in cost to move their cargo from Lagos by road to their warehouses located in their states.”

Is there a deliberate marginalization of Eastern Ports by the federal government in order to strangulate the economy of the area, while Lagos is allowed to prosper at their expense? If we are to dispel the conspiracy theory, why is a nation of over 190million people and Africa’s biggest economy importing 85 per cent of its cargos through only Apapa and TinCan Ports in Lagos?

What explanation can those who have been running this country give for this absurd economic situation in the 21st Century?

Every other day Nigerians are regaled of the stories of congestions at Lagos Ports and the poor state of the roads leading to the ports. A foreigner visiting Nigeria for the first time could be pardoned to think that Nigeria only has ports in Lagos.

In August last year, no fewer than two million containers laden with various cargoes worth over N5 trillion were stranded at the Lagos port complex, due to the inability of importers to evacuate them.

Many of the cargoes incurred demurrage after enjoying three rent-free days from the day of discharge. The containers demurrage accumulated due to the blockade of ports’ access roads for repairs. This situation, according to experts, portends grave danger for the Nigerian economy. The experts also said that it would further discourage importers from choosing Nigeria as the port of destination.

The situation has affected the berthing of ships at Tin Can and Apapa ports as no fewer than 20 vessels often queue up to berth as a result of the slow discharge of containers, which are needed to be carefully stacked at the terminals. Sometimes things get so bad that trucks can no longer go in and out of the various terminals inside the port, without huge efforts at traffic control.

The worrisome aspect of this congestion is that apart from Apapa and Tin-Can Island seaports that handle over 85 per cent of cargo imported into the country, Nigeria has seaports in Calabar, Warri, Onne and Rivers that remain under utilized. Four of these seaports put together do not measure up to one of the seaports in Lagos in terms of volume.

Ironically, the majority of shippers (importers and exporters) that use Lagos ports are located in the South East, South-South and Northern parts of country. As a result, these importers pay double in cost to move their cargo from Lagos by road to their warehouses located in their states.

Here, bulk of the Lagos ports importers are constrained against their wish to import through Lagos ports since container laden vessels do not frequent the Eastern ports owing to barriers such as lack of political will to open-up these ports, shallow draft of water channels leading to the ports and security concern deterring shipping liners from patronizing the ports.

Considering the fact that cargo must get to the final destination at the right time, in good condition and at the most economic cost, South East, South-South and Northern importers, therefore, must use Lagos.

For instance, in terms of cost, shipping companies charge as much as N800,000 as deposit per container where the consignee’s address is outside Lagos against N150,000 if the destination of consignment is Lagos.

Also, importation of some products e.g. pharmaceutical products are restricted to Lagos ports of Apapa and Tin-Can Island only, hence, the above mentioned regions with their very huge pharmaceutical markets are forced through government policy and directive to import their goods through the Lagos ports, thus leaving other ports of the regions unviable. Lagos ports are also the only legitimate ports for the export of non-oil products.

Anybody with elementary knowledge of geography knows that the Eastern Ports are closer to northern importers in Kano or Kaduna than the Lagos Ports. Need I say more on the closeness of Eastern Seaports to importers from Aba, Onitsha, Nnewi (industrial heartlands of South East) to Eastern Seaports at Calabar, Warri, Onne, and Rivers.

It has been said that the South East are dominating the pharmaceutical industry, both in importation of pharmaceutical products and in manufacturing, if that is the case why did federal government has a discriminating policy that pharmaceutical products can only be imported into Nigeria through Lagos Ports, when such choice should have been left for the importer?

Why has federal government failed to utilize the Eastern Ports to their full capacity? What does federal government hope to gain by not diversifying the utilization of ports in Nigeria, which could have brought prosperity to cities hosting these other ports, as much as Lagos is being prospered?

Therefore, to address the problem of congestion of Lagos ports, government must start finding ways to review some import and export guidelines militating against the viability of Eastern ports. The government should also muster the political will to make the ports outside Lagos viable by addressing the infrastructural challenge facing them. There is urgent need to remove all encumbrances hindering the full utilization of the Eastern Seaports. The diversification of the economy, which is the fulcrum of the Buhari administration, may not amount to much unless the monopoly of Lagos as the only legitimate ports for the export of non-oil products is broken.

The last administration awarded contract for the dredging of Calabar Port and work was ongoing there until the present administration took over governance and there was talk of review of the contract over alleged corruption in the process of awarding the contract. Little has been heard since about the dredging of Calabar Port. President Muhammadu Buhari should not only accelerate work at Calabar Port, he should work towards decentralization of the ports away from Lagos dominance to Eastern Ports, so that as Lagos prospers, other parts of Nigeria will also prosper. This will enhance the development of the country on several fronts. Nigeria cannot continue to lose trillions of naira annually due to the congestion of Lagos Ports while the Eastern Ports are underutilized.