Blue Economy
BEYOND THE APPLAUSE: What Nigeria’s IMO Council Victory Really Means for the Blue Economy
By Bode Animashaun, waterwaysnews.ng
The headlines have been triumphant. Federal Government congratulations. Minister’s speeches about returning to the global maritime table. President Tinubu’s affirmation. But beneath the ceremonial cheering, a more sobering reality emerges:
Is Nigeria’s re-election to Category C of the International Maritime Organization Council a genuine breakthrough for the nation’s struggling blue economy, or merely another diplomatic appointment that will gather dust while structural problems persist?
The answer, it turns out, is somewhere in between—and that complexity is precisely what Nigeria’s maritime community needs to understand.
The Victory: Real, But Context Matters
Let’s start with the facts. Nigeria was re-elected to Category C of the IMO Council on November 28, 2025, ending a 14-year drought that lasted through five consecutive failed election attempts. The last time Nigeria held a Council seat was 2011, before five consecutive campaigns to return home failed in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021
The IMO Council is the executive organ of the International Maritime Organization and is responsible for supervising the work of the organization between sessions of the Assembly. The Council performs all functions of the Assembly except making recommendations to governments on maritime safety and pollution prevention, functions reserved for the Assembly
So yes, the seat is real. But is it powerful? That’s where the truth gets complicated.
What This Seat Actually Gives Nigeria
Winning seats on the IMO Council means wielding influence over decisions that could affect shipping routes, maritime technology investment, and compliance standards dictated by IMO guidelines. For Nigeria specifically, it’s much more than symbolic politics.
President Tinubu noted that the new IMO Council mandate aligns with his administration’s drive to unlock the full potential of Nigeria’s blue economy, expand maritime infrastructure, strengthen anti-piracy initiatives, and improve the nation’s standing as a regional shipping hub, to borrow from a report on TV360 Nigeria.
More concretely, the position empowers Nigeria to influence policies on shipping safety, environmental regulation, navigation standards, pollution control, maritime security, and sustainable ocean governance. Given the country’s large coastline and critical position in the Gulf of Guinea, such influence could translate to stronger regional leadership
But here’s what matters most: one advantage of being in the IMO, especially for a country like Nigeria, which has in recent times recorded huge success in the fight against piracy, is having a say in the IMO’s decisions, which will help the country push for collective security efforts, stronger regulation, and better compliance for both national and regional shipping, trade, and safety
The Blue Economy Payoff: If It Works
Nigeria doesn’t just get a seat at the table. It gets credibility. Nigeria’s return is expected to strengthen the country’s maritime and blue economy sectors by improving access to technical expertise, expanding international partnerships, boosting investor confidence, and reinforcing Nigeria’s leadership role in the Gulf of Guinea.
Think about what that means. When a Nigerian shipping company seeks financing from international lenders, or when a port operator attempts to attract foreign investment, the fact that Nigeria sits on the IMO Council changes the calculus. It’s no longer just another West African port or shipping registry applying for capital. It’s a nation that has earned global recognition for maritime competence.
The seat provides leverage for international cooperation, funding, and technical partnerships —exactly what Nigeria’s creaking port infrastructure and underdeveloped shipping sector desperately need.
What Happened When Countries Lost This Influence
The cautionary tale sits right in Nigeria’s history. Nigeria first joined the IMO in 1962 and held Council positions at various intervals up to 2009, after which five consecutive attempts to return failed. Its absence limited Nigeria’s influence on global maritime regulations, shipping security, and ocean governance
Those fourteen years weren’t wasted time. They were time Nigeria spent irrelevant. While Kenya used its IMO Council seat to contribute meaningfully to maritime policy development, and the Philippines used its Category C position to advance and promote the human rights, safety and well-being of seafarers according to the Nigerianports, Nigeria was on the sidelines.
Belgium, which sits on the IMO Council, emphasizes that being a member enables the country to influence international shipping policy over the next two years. It notes that the Council determines the priorities and budget of the IMO and that decisions have a major impact on the economy and on the entire logistics chain
If Belgium—a relatively small nation—leverages its Council seat for concrete economic advantage, why shouldn’t Nigeria?
The Uncomfortable Truth: This Isn’t Just An Honour
But here’s where expectations must collide with reality. Nigeria lost previous IMO Council elections due to structural lapses including poor preparation, weak diplomatic networking and regional bloc support, late and disorganised campaign planning, failure to implement findings and recommendations from the IMO Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS), a weak indigenous shipping sector, and inadequate seafarers’ training and welfare. Other challenges included piracy, delays in updating maritime legislation, slow enforcement of safety and environmental standards, and inconsistent compliance with the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code across ports
Many of these problems haven’t disappeared just because Nigeria won an election. They’ve improved, yes, but structural reform takes time. The real question isn’t whether Nigeria now has the seat—it does. The question is whether the country’s institutions are ready to use it effectively.
What Other African Nations Are Doing With Their Seats
Look across the continent. The other African nations elected to Category C alongside Nigeria are Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and South Africa. Each is using their position strategically.
Kenya’s bid for re-election to the IMO Council under Category C is a strategic move that reinforces the country’s maritime diplomacy and leadership in the region. A continued seat ensures Kenya remains influential in shaping global maritime policy, particularly as it advances its blue economy agenda.
Egypt controls the Suez Canal—arguably the world’s most strategically important shipping lane. Its IMO Council presence helps it shape global maritime law. Morocco is advancing its maritime infrastructure and using Council influence to push regional development. South Africa is using its seat to advocate for African maritime interests.
Nigeria? It controls the Gulf of Guinea—a region rife with piracy, oil theft, and environmental degradation. Nigeria will also represent the interests of West and Central African nations in global maritime governance and help bridge the gaps. Nigeria will present challenges facing the nations in the region at the council’s global agenda, such as piracy, oil theft, environmental pollution, capacity gaps, technical assistance needs, and influencing international safety standards
The platform is there. The leverage is available. Whether Nigeria uses it wisely is another matter entirely.
The Blue Economy Connection: Where The Rubber Meets The Road
Here’s what this Council seat could actually unlock for Nigeria’s struggling blue economy. An elected country on the council supervises programmes, approves budgets, and steers regulatory priorities, while preventing dominance by the major shipping powers in Categories A and B
This means Nigeria can now advocate directly for developing nations’ concerns at the highest decision-making levels of maritime governance. It can push back against regulations that favour the wealthy shipping nations. It can champion capacity-building for Nigerian maritime professionals. It can influence standards that affect how Nigerian ports operate and how Nigerian-flagged vessels are treated globally.
More importantly, it can shape the narrative around maritime safety and sustainability in ways that benefit a developing nation’s maritime sector.
The Verdict: Not Everything, But Not Nothing
So is this appointment mere recognition? No. Is it transformative? Not by itself.
What Nigeria’s IMO Council seat actually represents is an opportunity—one that the country earned back through sustained reforms and strategic diplomacy, but one that must now be executed flawlessly to deliver real returns.
The successful comeback ends a long period of exclusion and restores a voice in shaping global shipping and maritime-safety regulations, increasing confidence for investors and partners in the blue-economy sector, and enhancing credibility for continued reforms across NIMASA, port operations, and coastal security
For Nigeria’s blue economy to flourish, the country can’t simply occupy the seat. It must argue forcefully for developing nations. It must help shape a maritime regulatory environment that doesn’t automatically disadvantage smaller, less-resourced maritime nations. It must use the platform to attract investment and technical partnerships. And it must deliver results that justify the trust the international community has placed in it.
The applause was deserved. The work begins now.
Bode Animashaun covers maritime policy and blue economy development for waterwaysnews.ng
Oyetola Woos Turkish Investors for Fisheries Sector, Vows to Protect Artisanal Fishers
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, has thrown Nigeria’s fisheries sector open to Turkish investment, insisting that any fresh capital coming into the industry must strengthen and not sideline the millions of Nigerians who depend on artisanal fishing for a living.
Oyetola made the pledge while receiving a delegation from Turkish fisheries and aquaculture firm CRD Impex, led by the company’s General Manager for Fisheries, Cem Tarhan, at his Abuja office. He told the investors the Federal Government was ready to create an investment-friendly climate for credible local and foreign players willing to bring capital, technology and modern value-chain solutions to the sector, on condition that such investment remains inclusive.
“We welcome investors who can bring capital, technology, expertise and modern value-chain solutions to the sector. However, investment must be inclusive and sustainable. It must complement and empower our artisanal fish producers, not undermine their livelihoods,” the Minister said
He listed inadequate infrastructure, poor access to modern fishing technology, weak cold-chain systems, limited processing and storage capacity, and gaps in market access as the major constraints holding back the sector, framing each as an opening for targeted investment rather than a dead end.
The Turkish team, which included CRD Impex founder Hanefi Cardak and Tetra Underwater Services founder Ersun Buyukgoze, toured key fisheries and aquaculture points around the country to size up the terrain first-hand. Stops included the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal in Lagos, the Ozumba Mbadiwe Fish Market in Lekki, and the Esuk Nsidung Beach Market, a major waterfront seafood hub in Calabar, Cross River State.
The Ministry described the visit as part of a broader push to attract serious investment into Nigeria’s blue economy while keeping the welfare of artisanal fishers central to that growth.
Nigeria Watch
The Turkish courtesy call lands squarely in the pattern this desk has tracked all year: big-ticket investment pledges for Nigeria’s waterways, paired with familiar assurances that the small operator won’t be crowded out. The test, as always, is what happens after the photo-op.
Nigeria’s artisanal fishing communities occupy the same economic space as the informal boat operators represented by WABOTAN and ATBOWATON, river- and creek-dependent Nigerians whose livelihoods rise or fall on decisions made far from the waterfront. The infrastructure gaps Oyetola cited which include, weak cold-chain systems, poor storage and limited market access, all mirror the exact complaints this desk has documented from inland waterway operators for years but modernisation announced from Abuja rarely reache the jetties.
Turkish capital chasing Nigerian fisheries and aquaculture is a genuinely new thread, distinct from the Strait of Hormuz shipping story or the CVFF disbursement saga this desk has followed closely. But the underlying question is the same one that has defined Oyetola’s tenure at the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy: will “inclusive investment” translate into contracts, cooperative partnerships and cold-chain infrastructure that artisanal operators can actually use or will it, like so many blue-economy pledges before it, stall at the courtesy-visit stage?
Waterways News will be watching for the first concrete CRD Impex commitment — site, timeline, or local partnership — as the marker of whether this one is different.
NPERA, NPA Open Technical Talks on Handover of Inland Dry Port Functions
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have begun formal engagement on transferring inland dry port oversight to NPERA, marking the start of what both agencies describe as a critical phase in operationalising Nigeria’s new port regulatory framework.
At a management-level meeting between the two agencies, officials focused on the technical groundwork for the handover, chiefly how to draw clear lines of responsibility and avoid duplication among the government bodies with a stake in inland dry port administration.
NPERA’s Director-General/CEO, Dr Akutah Pius, framed the transition as flowing directly from the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, whom he credited with steering the process toward the sector’s broader development. Akutah was emphatic that NPERA could not carry out the transfer alone, and said the buy-in of every relevant stakeholder agency would be needed to see it through.
He indicated that the Ministry would stay central to coordinating the process even as specific mandates move to the agencies best placed to execute them. Akutah also pointed to the Minister’s earlier interventions during the NPERA Bill’s passage through the National Assembly, which he said had defused inter-agency friction and set the stage for the cooperation now underway.
Describing the purpose of the meeting, Akutah said it was meant to formally kick off the transfer of inland dry port responsibilities to NPERA in fulfilment of its statutory role as economic regulator of the ports sector. He singled out Section 51 of the NPERA Act as a provision that now needs to be put into practical effect to keep the transition orderly and ensure stakeholder roles are properly aligned.
To manage the process going forward, the NPERA boss proposed setting up a joint committee drawing in NPERA, NPA, the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), and the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy. He argued that inland dry ports matter well beyond the coastline. They extend maritime sector benefits into Nigeria’s hinterland and reinforce the country’s trade and logistics chain.
Responding on behalf of NPA, Managing Director Dr Abubakar Dantsoho welcomed the move and pledged his agency’s full operational and technical backing throughout the transition. He said the process had started on the right footing, and that NPA would furnish updated data on the current state of inland dry ports to inform further discussions, expressing confidence that continued engagement would help the agencies meet their shared objectives.
NPA’s Executive Director, Engr. Lekan Badmus, also commended NPERA for setting the collaboration in motion, calling the meeting a solid first step toward a smooth integration. He noted the two agencies have now moved into the technical phase of the exercise, with close attention being paid to eliminating overlapping functions.
Closing the meeting, Akutah said the proposed joint committee would reconvene with the Minister to seek further guidance and agree on next steps to keep the transition on track.
Nigeria Watch
This meeting is the first visible test of whether the NPERA Act’s promise of a rationalised port regulatory architecture can survive contact with Nigeria’s crowded agency landscape. Section 51’s transfer of inland dry port functions to NPERA looks straightforward on paper; in practice, it touches NPA’s traditional port administration turf, NIWA’s inland waterways mandate, and the Ministry’s coordinating role all at once, precisely the kind of overlapping jurisdiction that has bedevilled reform efforts elsewhere in the sector, most visibly in the long-running NIWA-LASWA tussle that only the Supreme Court could settle.
The proposed joint committee of NPERA, NPA, NIWA, and the Ministry, is a sensible mechanism, but Waterways News readers who have followed the CVFF disbursement saga know that Nigerian maritime governance has no shortage of well-designed committees whose outputs never quite reach implementation. What will matter is whether Akutah’s “technical phase” produces a binding timeline, not another round of goodwill statements.
For inland dry port operators and the hinterland trade corridors that depend on them, the stakes are practical: unclear jurisdiction between NPA and NPERA has historically meant slower cargo evacuation, duplicated levies, and uncertainty for freight forwarders planning routes away from the congested Lagos ports. If this transition is handled well, it strengthens the case for dry ports as genuine pressure valves for Apapa and Tin Can. If it stalls in inter-agency turf negotiation, it becomes one more entry in the gap between policy pronouncement and delivery that this desk continues to track.
Worth watching: whether Minister Oyetola’s office sets an explicit deadline when the committee reconvenes, and whether NIWA, whose inland waterways mandate intersects with dry port hinterland connectivity, gets more than a seat at the table.
Two More Tankers Struck in Strait of Hormuz as Attack Count Hits Five in a Week
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Two more tankers have been hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving two seafarers with minor injuries and pushing the number of reported attacks or security incidents against commercial vessels in the waterway to at least five since 16 September.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said an inbound tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile on Monday. Two crew members sustained minor injuries, but the vessel stayed under its own power and continued to its next port, with no environmental impact reported.
Hours later, UKMTO issued a second alert after an outbound LPG tanker reported being struck by debris from unknown projectiles. All crew were reported safe and the vessel also continued its voyage. Authorities are investigating both incidents, and UKMTO has not attributed either attack to a specific actor.
The two strikes build on a Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) advisory covering three earlier attacks between 16 and 18 September, one of which saw a tanker’s hull breached by a projectile, sparking a fire. JMIC continues to rate the threat level in the strait as “severe,” citing a high likelihood of deliberate hostile action and pointing to a pattern of harassment by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — drone overflights, surveillance of merchant vessels and VHF hailing, alongside the direct attacks.
Traffic through the chokepoint remains sharply depressed. Only 17 commodity vessels were visibly transiting over the weekend, down from 37 the week before and against a pre-war daily average of roughly 125. That figure excludes vessels sailing with their AIS transponders switched off, and JMIC notes a persistent gap between visible and actual traffic.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders, the Hormuz crisis is no longer a distant Gulf story. It is a cost line. Every fresh escalation feeds directly into the war-risk insurance premiums and freight rates that Nigerian importers, refiners and shipping agents ultimately absorb, since global tanker and container capacity pulled off the Hormuz route tightens supply elsewhere and pushes rates up across long-haul trades, including those serving West African ports.
The renewed attacks also sharpen the stakes around Nigeria’s push for a stronger voice at the IMO Council table and its broader blue-economy diplomacy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. A sustained Gulf disruption is exactly the kind of systemic shock that tests whether Nigeria’s seat translates into influence over how global shipping risk, insurance and rerouting decisions are made, rather than Nigeria simply absorbing the downstream cost.
Locally, the episode is a reminder of the layered nature of “maritime security” as a policy word: the Deep Blue Project and Gulf of Guinea security architecture address piracy and armed robbery close to home, but Nigeria’s ports and shippers remain exposed to security failures thousands of kilometres away in the Gulf.
Waterways News will continue tracking how the Hormuz situation feeds into freight cost pressure at Nigerian ports and NIMASA’s public messaging on the issue.
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