By Foster Obi
At a recent encounter, Chief Patrick Osita Chukwu, the controversial National Coordinator of Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders Importers and Exporters Coalition (SNFFIEC) was livid at the way Nigeria’s Maritime fortunes are being mismanaged by the government.
He is also of the opinion that some officials in leadership roles are square pegs in round holes.
While Nigeria is a signatory to AfCFTA, he says the country may not benefit from it because of leadership dissonance.
He also spoke about the state of the Maritime industry, Customs and effect of free fall of the Naira on the economy.
What do you say about the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, of which Nigeria is a signatory? Do you think we are prepared for it?
Yes, we are prepared but there are issues. I am a member because I represented Nigeria in different fora across West, East, and Central Africa. Egypt, Togo, Ghana, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic. We visited a lot of places and engaged in Seminars. I have presented papers and served as a rapporteur. In one of the seminars, I told them that Nigeria has not been creative in developing its country with the resources they have. I used the Ajaokuta Steel Industry as an example, that if any company should come to Ajaokuta to start manufacturing containers used in carrying cargo, it can do well. In some countries, it is container production they have as their major means of income. And they effectively use it to manage their economy.
This container earns a lot of money. Get the containers built, push them into the market, and get them registered. The container begins to make money; anywhere you take it, it makes money, and when you come to pick it up, it makes money. Container that may have a life span of 30 years; before that 30 years, it must have made millions of dollars for you. Instead of us to use our resources, we give them out to foreigners under the guise that they are foreigners or expatriates.
How much do you think Nigeria will benefit from the trade agreement based on the numerous challenges facing her?
If you ask me I will say zero. We are not going to benefit from anything based on the numerous challenges we have.
With the challenges we have, the country is sinking. I don’t know where in the world you can sell fuel for N1,200 per liter to survive. Starting from energy, any country that wants to survive will start from energy. This light we are using now is energy; the distribution plant does not have energy to survive because they are using diesel. Flight does not go anywhere without aviation fuel. You have vessels that bring in these cargoes; without diesel, they cannot go anywhere. It is only God that can liberate us from the situation we are in now. It is beyond human management.
The government and economic drivers believe they are doing well, whereas they are already doomed and cannot come out clean to the people and face the situation of things. Labour demanded N70,000 for minimum wage; the government granted N70,000, only to turn around and take it through fuel increase. Can you see the government is not sincere? Many things are happening to the country today, such as politicians and the judiciary. If they did not have the belief that when they went to court, they would win, they would stop doing all they do.
What is the state of the maritime sector of the economy under the current administration?
The maritime sector has been there, and people are not happy with the management roles of some key players. There is a lot of bureaucracy. The port is not where you bring quacks to manage. It is where professionalism should always come into play. It is where professionals should be engaged. When you bring a politician to manage the ports, what you see is like bringing a quack to manage a pregnant woman.
What you may expect, if the woman is lucky to give birth through the grace of God, may end up having a child with a disability or partially disabled.
The port has k-leg in the sense that today, the throughput of our ports has reduced to 57 percent. This is a very bad form of deficiency as a result of the Federal Government’s poor policies. It is a kind of inefficacy resulting from the Federal Government. This is also a kind of deficiency on the part of the Federal Government’s inadequacy in policymaking.
Involve professionals in what you do to make sure you revitalize the sector. There are lots of deficiencies. If the government wants to make policy on any sector, they should involve professionals in the sector. This will revitalize the sector. But when you come under the system that people have come and gone, it is expected that you do better than your predecessors. In our maritime sector today, we are retarding, rather than going forward as if we are still in an archaic period.
Why, then, do we have an ICT regime? Why, then, do we have mobile phones? If we can do this job when there is no phone when there are no vehicles, when vehicles are limited at that time, and we are doing it well when all these gadgets have not arrived, how much more when we have all these gadgets? And we cannot do it better.
For Customs and other agencies, some are doing their best. For instance, the CAC Apapa Port, Comptroller Olomu is making a tremendous impact and efforts with his team. To collect N1.6 trillion in revenue for the Federal Government, hoping to make it 2.2 trillion before the end of the year. These are the type of people that, in this era, we chose so that in time to come, we have something you can equally hold on to when you want to do anything.
Going by the free fall of the Naira against the Dollar, how has this affected the imports, exports, and the general economy of the country?
It has seriously affected activities in the maritime sector. But there must be a way out. When we went for a seminar recently, I told the Federal Government, through the Nigeria Customs Service, to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Finance. Ghanaians don’t practice what we do as regards creating a formula for duty payment. It is only here we use the system. Anything likely can have the same HS Code. Ours is that there is iron there, there is rubber there, but it is the same work they are doing. Somebody will start bringing bottlenecks to ensure that you pay through your nose to clear cargo. I told them that if the dollar goes high, what they should do to maintain that status quo is to bring the interest on HS Code downward as a kind of palliative. If the Dollar becomes high, you bring down your interest on the HS Code. Those you pay N50,000 you bring it down to N30,000. Those that attract N20,000, you bring it down to N10,000, and those that fall under N10,000, you bring it down to N5,000. This will, as a palliative measure, enable that gap to be closed. You will no longer have much. Even the importers will not even know that something happened. It will remain the same, and money will come. Let me tell you what they don’t seem to understand in economic terms. There is what we call economic failure. If you fail to understand the need for you to make a turnover in economics, that is the greatest thing one can understand. Only you pursuing five million people. Only one person is to pay N50 million, and 50 people are to pay N50 million. One person cannot pay that N50 million. The throughput of cargo did not decline only as a result of the dollar rise but as a result of crude policies not found anywhere in the world apart from Nigeria. So, if crude policies persist, whereby they don’t want others to partake in the policy-making, even the freight forwarders, where they would not allow others to impute or advise them. The importers can advise them, and the freight forwarders can advise them. Some are taking huge loans to bring in these goods, some are using their relatives overseas to bring in the goods, and some are using the money they labored for to push in the goods so that they can sell and keep the money for them. That is exactly what we are trying to say. Making a turnover is the greatest thing one can understand in economics.
Like in Apapa port where you do your business, if you are rated with all these challenges, what would you score throughput fall percentage?
Not that there are no challenges. Even in the 90s, the challenges were there, but it is not as much as we are now. What was the cost of fuel then per liter? Even then, was when we were getting lesser duty as revenue. Customs then had never passed N1trillion. Apart from this regime. So, why has Customs passed N3 trillion? Why did they pass a trillion? At the time of hard situation. Assuming the situation is so conducive, then what would they have generated as revenue to the Federal Government? That will show you that something has happened somewhere.
So, that percentage of cargo dropped?
I said 57 percent. Go to PTML, nothing is working there. They just want to make that place a transit hub. Over 3,000 cars were dropped there recently. I thought they were meant for Nigerian markets. Not even knowing they were going further elsewhere. They use the place as a hub, before taking the goods to neighbouring countries.
Chief, talking about the drop in cargo throughput coming into the country, but revenue coming from Customs duty kept rising. How do they make this money?
When we talk about throughput here, we are talking about containerized goods. Those bulk cargos are still working and coming in, they know they cannot lose. You know we cannot do without them. They are for manufacturers. Nigeria is an import-dependent country. They, as manufacturers can hardly lose. Check how much a bag of Semovita is sold now and compare it to what it was sold then. What it was sold last year or sold in the 90s. They will be bringing the bulk cargo and still be manufacturing and selling. Whatever is the leftover of whatsoever would be joined together and sold. So, they are not losing, that is why they continued to bring them in. That is why the Customs revenue is increasing. How many containers are coming in of other goods? All the bonded terminals are empty. But if you have done the analysis, and if there are palliative measures, you see all these bonded terminals will have containers. There was a time when the bulk cargo was not moving; it was containerized goods that filled the ports. Bonded terminals were all filled. People were shouting. But today, the Federal government says they are doing all they need to do, but they are not listening to the people. They are adamant about the ports. This is because most of them don’t know much about seaports and management of seaports is all about. They only read in papers, Google, and TV or when they travel. But when they bring them in to manage as politicians, they will fail. The appointment of the wrong people to manage the ports is a major disadvantage.
Look at what the government is saying. They want to bring people to manage and collect revenue for them at the ports. Which country has this ever been done? We brought back the old National Anthem instead of forming a new one. Or use the old and the new to form something better for Nigeria. People are going forward and we are going backward.
Now, when you look at what we needed to boost the ports, there is a need to revisit the concession agreements. Revisiting the duty calculation as regards the dollar and exchange rate. Assuming the Naira becomes 10,000 per dollar. Will you continue to increase the duty? Or will you maintain that perception? Look at the fuel price increase. It is affecting everything. Transportation now has become a problem. From Apapa here to Mile 2 is now N500. It used to be N200 and N300. This morning, I bought fuel for N1100. If I had known it would increase by the afternoon, I would have bought more. It is now N1200 in the afternoon. I used N40,000 to fill my car before and used it for more than three weeks, but not any more.
Do you think the coming of the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry will bring any positive change in the sector?
There is no change my brother. The Minister is just managing himself. Since the creation, let the minister point out what he has done. Apart from the port access express road they cleared. Let him point out another achievement. Is it infrastructure or the dirtiness of the ports? They fly up and down. They don’t sit down to do the job but always travel overseas. The agencies, too, under the ministry are all guilty. All of them with the Minister flying here and there. You don’t sit down to do your work. Nobody sees you. People will be looking for you and they cannot access you. You don’t come to work, every time you are in Abuja. The President should reduce the influx of people coming to meet him in Abuja and tell those others to do more Zoom meetings. Why won’t they do Zoom meetings?