By Foster Obi

Nigeria’s return to the IMO Council in Category C is cause for celebration but it also amplifies a long-standing national embarrassment. Despite repeated promises, committees, and ministerial assurances, Nigeria still lacks a functional national shipping line. That absence has tangible costs and strategic consequences for the country’s trade, balance of payments, and maritime independence.
Official promises and the silence that follows
When Adegboyega Oyetola, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, set out the administration’s blue-economy agenda he repeatedly framed indigenous shipping as central to the plan. The Ministry has published a string of statements affirming the government’s commitment: “Our commitment to indigenous shipping is total and irreversible,” the Ministry quoted the Minister as saying in an official release tied to NIMAREX activities.
Also in his earliest stakeholder engagements, the minister publicly announced plans to re-establish a national shipping line under a strategic public–private partnership, describing the initiative as capable of adding as much as $10 billion in economic value if properly structured.
Yet industry sources and insiders say the high-level promises have not translated into an actionable, funded implementation plan that would actually put government-backed tonnage to sea.
“We heard the pledges. We saw the statements. But there has been no visible pilot project, no transparent procurement or clear funding window that demonstrates those words will become ships,” said a senior maritime agency source who has attended Ministry meetings
A bitter cycle of committees, study-tours, and abandoned recommendations
This pattern is painfully familiar. In 2016, then-Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi received a committee report on reviving a national shipping line after the ministerial committee’s work and trips abroad. Press coverage at the time recorded concerns about patronage of foreign ships, including a widely reported figure that Nigeria was losing billions to foreign shipowners, and the committee’s recommendations were not fully implemented.
Former President of the Ship Owners Association of Nigeria, SOAN, and Chairman of Starzs Shipping Company, Chief Greg Ogbeifun, told Thisday in an interview that Nigeria was losing over $15 billion annually for not having a national shipping line, with freight services alone accounting for $7 billion.
He said this figure also reflects the taxes Nigeria is forfeiting by not employing Nigerian seafarers and other maritime professionals.
He recalled efforts by the then Minister of Transportation, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, to revive the country’s national shipping line.
“One of the first things the Minister of Transportation, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, did when he assumed office was to form two committees: one to work on the establishment of a national fleet, and the other to examine the structure of NIMASA,” Ogbeifun said.
As a member of the committee on the national fleet, Ogbeifun explained that their mandate was to study what other countries were doing that enables them to successfully establish and maintain their own national fleets.
Another former member of that committee later said the exercise produced recommendations on financing models, governance, and vessel acquisition but the report gathered dust while money was spent on foreign visits and short-term PR.
“We travelled, we consulted, we prepared a blueprint. It was never used as the basis for a viable national fleet.”
The economic cost: valuations and official projections
Estimates cited in past reporting show the scale of the leakage. Press reporting around earlier revival efforts quoted figures such as $10 to $12 billion lost to patronage of foreign ships in specific years and government sources have put the upside from a successful national carrier in the billions. In public statements and press briefings, the Federal Government has repeatedly said a national carrier could unlock substantial value, jobs, and retention of foreign exchange.
Clarion Shipping: an indigenous start but has limits
In the vacuum left by the absence of an officially backed national fleet, private initiative has started to fill gaps. Clarion Shipping West Africa, owned by a woman has publicly launched a container service and acquired at least one indigenous-flagged containership (MV Ocean Dragon), pitching itself as Nigeria’s first fully indigenous containership operator. The firm’s launch and vessel acquisition were reported in multiple outlets during 2025.
Clarion’s management has publicly called for patronage and policy support, highlighting challenges such as dollar-denominated port charges and the capital intensity of liner operations. Analysts and business reports note that Clarion’s arrival is an important symbol and commercially, but that a single private line cannot substitute for a deliberate state framework that addresses finance, levies, guarantees, and route support.
“Clarion’s MV Ocean Dragon shows Nigeria can own and operate ocean-going tonnage. But shipping is a long-haul, capital-intensive game. The Government must reduce structural barriers if indigenous lines are to survive,” said Kalu Eke a freight forwarder at Lagos port.
Why the Minister must move from rhetoric to delivery
Winning a Category C seat at the IMO gives Nigeria influence in rule-making and technical decisions. But influence without capacity is hollow. A properly structured national shipping programme would: Retain freight earnings and reduce outflows of foreign exchange, Provide commercial capacity for crude, refined product, and specialist cargoes when national interest demands it, Strengthen the hand of Nigerian delegations in multilateral forums by pairing diplomacy with demonstrable capacity.
Also, it will expand training and career paths for Nigerian seafarers and shore staff, and encourage the development of local ship-management, repair, and maritime services.
It’s so humiliating that the country churn out cadets from its maritime academies yearly with no practical seatime experience.
Minister Oyetola himself has repeatedly framed the marine and blue economy as central to economic diversification and insisted indigenous shipping is a priority; words the Ministry has put on record. The sector’s question now is simple: will those words be matched by a funded implementation plan, transparent PPP terms, and early demonstrable steps such as vessel guarantees, subsidy-for-route trials, or a government anchor equity stake that draws private capital?
“The Ministry must stop issuing speeches and start publishing project documents: tender timelines, public-private governance structures, and a rolling five-year financing plan that shows how ships will actually be bought, insured, and deployed,” said Helen Udi, an international shipping policy expert.
What success would look like:
Publish a transparent PPP prospectus and procurement timeline, create a modest pilot fleet (2–4 modern multipurpose/feeder vessels) on strategic routes with guaranteed volume support, offer temporary, targeted levy relief or dollar-charging reform for newly-flagged indigenous services to fix the port-levy cash-flow mismatch like Clarion, others cite.
Use the IMO Category C seat strategically, pair diplomatic credibility with demonstrable capacity creation on the water, make the 2016 committee’s (and any later) recommendations public, and explain which will be adopted or discarded and why.
Nigeria’s return to the IMO Category C table should be something to ginger us. The country has both private actors (like Clarion) and a newly invigorated Ministry that has publicly vowed to back indigenous shipping. But unless the Minister moves beyond statements to publishable, funded, and accountable action plans, Nigeria risks repeating old patterns: committees, foreign trips, press releases, and no national carrier.
As Minister Oyetola put it in Ministry statements, “Our commitment to indigenous shipping is total and irreversible. Stakeholders will judge those words at the end, whether they were real actions or mere words designed to hug newspaper headlines, as Nigerian politicians are wont.

… Profiteering syndicate allegedly fueling chaos

The notorious traffic gridlock that once crippled Apapa and its environs is gradually resurfacing, threatening to paralyze movement and port operations once again.
Despite previous interventions, residents, commuters, and port workers are now facing renewed evening congestion as truckers and tankers swarm the port access roads daily.

Investigations by the Network of Nigerian Maritime Journalists reveal that while Apapa roads remain relatively free during the day, a long trail of trucks begins forming by evening from both the Costain and Mile 2 entry points.

From the Ijora-Olopa Bridge to Apapa and from Coconut Bus Stop to Tin Can Island’s gates, trucks line up in droves, allegedly paying between N30,000 and N50,000 to secure a spot in the queue.

Sources alleged that some officials of key agencies—including the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), and the Nigeria Police—are complicit in the illegal toll collection, turning a blind eye as the situation worsens.

The most affected areas include Wharf Road, Warehouse Road, Commercial Road, Burma Road, and Creek Road.

By 5 PM, vehicle owners often abandon their cars and resort to motorcycles to escape the gridlock while their cars are out of the affected areas before closing work daily.

Moses Fadipe, former National Coordinator of the Port Standing Task Team (PSTT), attributed the resurgence to the return of vested interests who previously profited from the chaos. He noted that the Lagos State Government knows what steps to take to prevent a full-blown crisis.

Martins Enibeli, President of the Nigerian Institute of Shipping (NIS) and the Nigerian Licensed Ship Chandlers Association (NILSCA), blamed government insincerity for the relapse.
He urged authorities to prioritize rail transport for cargo evacuation from Lagos ports and to revive Eastern and Delta ports to ease pressure on Apapa.

“Bonded terminals should be relocated far from the ports and connected by rail. Government must stop concentrating port operations in the West while neglecting other regions,” Enibeli stated.

A senior official, speaking anonymously, confirmed that a syndicate involving both state and non-state actors is profiting from the tolls collected from truckers, exacerbating the traffic crisis.

Stakeholders are calling for urgent federal intervention to dismantle the alleged racketeering network and restore sanity to Apapa’s transport corridors.