Business
The Presence of Foreign Crew Aboard Our Coastal Vessels: What Must be Done to Enforce the Nigeria Cabotage Law – Part Three and Four
The Presence of Foreign Crew Aboard Our Coastal Vessels: What Must be Done to Enforce the Nigeria Cabotage Law – Part Three and Four
A Comprehensive Special Report on Legislative Intent, Systemic Failures, Human Costs, and the Reform Agenda Nigeria Cannot Afford to Delay. Our four-parts reports ends today, Here is part three and four.
By Oghenewoke Osaweren | Maritime Desk, Waterways News | Friday, March 20, 2026
PART THREE: THE HUMAN COST — UNEMPLOYED NIGERIANS, REPATRIATED BILLIONS
The failure of the Cabotage Act is not merely an abstraction of policy or economics. It has direct, measurable human consequences for the tens of thousands of Nigerian men and women trained for a maritime industry that the law promised to place in their hands.
The social consequences are equally severe as thousands of maritime jobs were lost to expatriates, while local operators remained uncompetitive, and Nigeria’s maritime sovereignty continued to erode. The ripple effects have hindered the growth of related sub-sectors, including shipbuilding, insurance, bunkering, and marine logistics.
The employment of Nigerian seafarers, ship operators, chandlers, and ship managers would increase, as domestic shipping would involve Nigerian-built, owned, crewed, and operated vessels. In the United States, for example, approximately 124,000 people are directly employed in jobs related to cabotage, including 20,000 workers in shipyards and 14,000 involved in fleet maintenance and repair.
Each waiver issued to a foreign vessel for crew is, in effect, a job denied to a Nigerian seafarer. Each crude oil shipment executed by a foreign tanker is income taxable to another nation, freight earnings banked in another economy. The Nigerian Ports Consultative Council (NPCC) estimates that yearly maritime revenue losses exceed $9 billion, while independent industry assessments by professional bodies estimate a yearly loss of approximately $50 billion. Some experts project the broader economic cost, including indirect losses, uncollected taxes, capital flight, and lost investment opportunities, to be as high as $100 billion per year.
The employment case for full cabotage enforcement is not hypothetical. Nigeria generates significant cargo through crude oil exports, agricultural produce, solid minerals, manufactured goods, and large import volumes. Yet foreign shipping lines dominate its seaborne trade, repatriating freight earnings and constraining domestic capital accumulation.
PART FOUR: THE REFORM AGENDA — WHAT MUST BE DONE
Nigeria’s maritime scholars, legal researchers, industry bodies, and regulatory authorities have produced a comprehensive body of recommendations for restoring the Cabotage Act to its intended purpose. Waterwaysnews.ng compiles the most substantive proposals below, drawing from peer-reviewed research, position papers by SEREC, and official government action frameworks.
4.1 LEGISLATIVE REFORM: AMEND THE ACT AND CLOSE THE WAIVER LOOPHOLES
The primacy of legal reform is widely agreed upon. SEREC recommends amending the Cabotage Act to close existing waiver loopholes, enhancing transparency, and implementing stiffer penalties for violations.
Specifically, researchers argue that the waiver provisions under Sections 9 to 11 must be fundamentally restructured. The waiver clauses in the Act, especially Section 9 (Part 3), are argued to no longer be necessary. The best alternative proposed is a ‘harmonised approach’ — requiring the Ministry of Transport and NIMASA to maintain focus and consistency in their actions, with recognition limited to companies that possess the necessary resources and meet the minimum ownership requirements.
Legal scholars further propose that the Act should include independent verification mechanisms for all waiver applications, mandatory timelines for waiver reviews, full public disclosure of all waivers granted, and penalties for fraudulent waiver applications. Without these safeguards, the waiver system will continue to serve as the most convenient instrument for cabotage circumvention.
4.2 ESTABLISH A CABOTAGE COMPLIANCE TRIBUNAL
The enforcement of the Cabotage Act through NIMASA’s general administrative powers has proven insufficient. A specialist adjudicatory body is needed. Establishing a specialised Cabotage Compliance Tribunal is suggested to expedite enforcement and ensure accountability, capable of handling violations swiftly and with credible deterrence.
Such a tribunal would have jurisdiction to hear cabotage violation cases, impose vessel detentions and financial penalties, adjudicate waiver disputes, and order restitution to defrauded Nigerian seafarers and operators. Its independence from political influence would be central to its efficacy.
4.3 MODERNISE AND PROPERLY FUND NIMASA
NIMASA must be modernised with advanced vessel tracking systems to improve inter-agency cooperation among maritime entities.
This encompasses comprehensive Automatic Identification System (AIS) integration, coastal surveillance technology, a centralised vessel compliance database accessible to all enforcement agencies, and mandatory real-time reporting from port operators and oil companies on all vessels operating in Nigerian waters. NIMASA’s enforcement personnel must also be increased and trained to match the scale of the maritime economy they are expected to regulate.
Professional appointments must be ensured to guarantee effective governance and regulation of the maritime sector, with reduced political interference in NIMASA operations.
4.4 FULLY OPERATIONALISE AND PROTECT THE CVFF
The Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund must be allowed to function at the scale it was always intended to reach. The CVFF should be fully operationalised with transparent disbursement and targeted support for fleet expansion.
The recent activation of the CVFF portal is a welcome development but must be followed through with actual disbursements, clear eligibility criteria, strong anti-corruption safeguards, and a pipeline of Nigerian shipping companies ready to acquire vessels. Empirical studies from Nigeria and other emerging markets suggest that the long-term gains depend heavily on credible, time-bound implementation and complementary industrial policy. The CVFF and complementary policies — skills, yards, and finance — must work in concert.
The Fund’s 2% surcharge collection from vessels engaged in coastal trade must also be audited, with all funds accounted for and ring-fenced for the purposes stipulated in the Act.
4.5 INCENTIVISE SHIPBUILDING AND REVITALISE INDIGENOUS SHIPYARDS
No cabotage policy can succeed without an industrial base to support it. Investment in local shipbuilding and seafarer training should be incentivised as part of a broader strategy to reclaim economic sovereignty and restore Nigeria’s maritime dignity.
The United States offers a ready model. The United States was able to accomplish its cabotage goals through various incentives like the Jones Act, Operating Differential Subsidy (ODS), and Capital Construction Fund (CCF), which aided in the development of both its shipbuilding and shipping industries simultaneously.
Nigeria’s accreditation of 27 shipyards in November 2025 represents an encouraging start. What is now required is a sustained programme of government contracts directed at indigenous yards, tax incentives for local vessel construction, and technical partnerships with advanced maritime nations for technology and skill transfer.
4.6 ENFORCE INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION AS A LEGAL OBLIGATION
Priority actions for full cabotage enforcement include improved inter-agency coordination among maritime entities — NIMASA, NPA, NNPCL, NIWA, and Nigeria Customs — as a structured, accountable institutional framework rather than a discretionary arrangement.
This requires formal inter-agency enforcement protocols with legal backing, joint inspection teams for vessels at all Nigerian ports and terminals, shared compliance databases, and mandatory information sharing. The National Policy on Marine and Blue Economy (2025–2034) provides a policy framework within which this coordination can be formalised.
4.7 PRIORITISE SEAFARER TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT PIPELINES
Even with vessels, the cabotage regime will fail without qualified Nigerian crew. The challenges manifest in the absence of a national fleet or carriers that could provide necessary training and sea-time experience for cadets, officers, and engineers, hindering the achievement of the Act’s manpower development objectives.
Maritime training institutions — particularly the Maritime Academy of Nigeria — must be funded to expand capacity and equipped with modern simulators and practical training facilities. Government-mandated quotas requiring International Oil Companies (IOCs) and shipping operators to employ Nigerian seafarers as a condition of operating in Nigerian waters should be robustly enforced. Oil companies in particular, whose offshore logistics chains remain heavily dominated by foreign crew, must be required to demonstrate cabotage compliance as a condition of their operating licences.
4.8 MANDATE CORPORATE TRANSPARENCY AND ANTI-FRONTING MEASURES
The practice of using Nigerian nationals as nominal fronts for foreign-owned shipping companies — thereby feigning compliance with the Act’s ownership requirements while the beneficial owner and operational control remains foreign — must be systematically addressed. Ambiguity in ownership and build requirements, enabling proxy foreign participation, has been identified as a key factor undermining the Cabotage regime.
Regulatory reforms should include mandatory beneficial ownership disclosure for all vessels on the Nigerian ship register, independent verification of ownership claims at the point of registration, and criminal liability for directors of companies found to be fronting for foreign interests.
4.9 DECLARE POLITICAL WILL AS POLICY IMPERATIVE
Ultimately, no institutional reform will succeed without the sustained engagement of the highest levels of the Nigerian government. “Political will remains the most decisive factor in rescuing the Cabotage regime from perpetual stagnation. Nigeria must consciously prioritise its maritime economic sovereignty — not as a slogan, but as a policy imperative tied to national growth and security.”
SEREC has pointed to Nigeria’s National Policy on Marine and Blue Economy (2025–2034) as a comprehensive framework, stressing that the key challenge lies in effective, coordinated, and accountable implementation. Significant maritime-derived revenues already exist but remain fragmented and under-optimised due to weak coordination and enforcement.
The potential reward for sustained political commitment is enormous. The maritime and blue economy sector could generate up to ₦70 trillion in revenue with improved governance and regulation — capturing gains from trade expansion, logistics efficiency, port productivity, inland waterways utilisation, cabotage enforcement, offshore maritime services and related blue-economy industries.
CONCLUSION: BETWEEN VISION AND REALITY, A NATION’S CHOICE
The Nigeria Cabotage Act of 2003 was not poorly conceived. It was a visionary law that correctly diagnosed the structural disadvantage of Nigerian maritime operators and correctly prescribed the remedy: legal protection, financial support, workforce development, and industrial investment. The tragedy is not the law itself — it is the distance between what the law demands and what the state has delivered.
“The Cabotage Act remains one of Nigeria’s most visionary maritime policies but continues to suffer from poor execution and lack of accountability,” SEREC has emphasised.
Foreign nationals continue to be found aboard coastal vessels — some legitimately under approved waivers, some through systemic circumvention of the law, and some through outright smuggling via neighbouring states. Each foreign seafarer taking a berth that a Nigerian seafarer could fill represents not just a regulatory failure but a direct cost to a family, a community, and a national economy that can no longer afford such losses.
The reforms required are not unknown. They are well documented, widely agreed upon, and already partially initiated. What is missing is not strategy — it is sustained, accountable follow-through. For Nigeria’s maritime future to match its maritime geography, the gap between those two must be closed with urgency, transparency, and irreversible political commitment.
Waterwaysnews.ng Maritime Desk | Monday, March 16, 2026
> EDITORIAL NOTE: This report draws exclusively on publicly available academic research, official government statements, regulatory publications, position papers from recognised maritime research bodies, and verified industry analysis. It does not make allegations against any individual, company, or foreign government, and is published in the public interest to contribute to informed policy discourse on Nigeria’s maritime sector.
© 2026 Waterwaysnews.ng. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
AS SAUDI TANKERS DITCH RED SEA FOR AFRICA ROUTE, NIGERIA IS MISSING FROM THE MAP
By Oghenewoke Osaweren | Waterways News
Six Saudi supertankers turned their backs on the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint this week, setting a course around the entire African continent rather than risk the Houthi-threatened waters of the Red Sea. The vessels are heading toward Gibraltar and South Africa’s Durban and Algoa Bay ports as waypoints on their unusual cross-continental journey. All six had loaded no cargo and turned away from Bab el-Mandeb after Houthi attacks on Saudi-linked shipping pushed Riyadh to reroute crude exports through Egypt instead.
It is a story that has run in Bloomberg, Reuters and half a dozen shipping trade outlets already, told mostly from the bridge of the tanker and the trading desks of Riyadh and London. What almost none of them ask is the question that matters most from Lagos: as six more supertankers join a growing armada now circling Africa’s coastline every month, why is Nigeria still standing outside looking in?
A DETOUR THAT IS BECOMING THE ROUTE
This is no longer a short-term scramble. Cape Town alone has seen a 112 percent surge in vessel traffic as the southern route hardens from an emergency workaround into what analysts now call a structural feature of global shipping. A single VLCC or large container ship now absorbs between $400,000 and $800,000 in extra bunker costs per voyage just to make the longer trip. That is money looking for somewhere on the African coast to land.
South Africa’s own commentators have begun asking why the country is watching billions of dollars in shipping activity sail past its shores while the fuel, repair, warehousing and crew-change business goes elsewhere. Namibia is expanding Walvis Bay, Kenya is pushing Lamu Port, and even Togo has moved to turn the Port of Lomé into a bunkering and transshipment hub, while South Africa’s own bunker volumes fell from roughly 130,000 tonnes a month to about 80,000. Mauritius nearly doubled its bunker fuel sales at Port Louis to a record 929,043 metric tons in 2024, up from 509,837 tons the year before, as regulatory friction pushed business away from South Africa.
Nigeria appears nowhere in that list of contenders despite being the continent’s largest crude producer, sitting directly along the Atlantic leg of the same route these tankers must sail to reach Gibraltar and the Mediterranean.
THE COAST NIGERIA IS NOT SELLING
Every vessel diverted around Africa eventually has to pass along West Africa’s flank on its way north. That ought to be an opportunity for Nigerian ports, bunkering, ship supply, crew changes and repair contracts to have the same economic multiplier effect that analysts say is now reshaping port economies from Cape Town to Lomé. Instead, the conversation happening in Abuja, at NIMASA, and inside Nigeria’s port authorities has been almost entirely absent from the continental race to capture this windfall.
The silence is not free. The Gulf of Guinea already accounted for 92 percent of all crew kidnappings worldwide in 2025, with the number of crew taken hostage rising from 12 in 2024 to 23. Niger Delta-based pirate networks have shown growing operational sophistication and a readiness to use violence to secure ransom, with oil tankers and offshore support vessels remaining their primary targets. As more traffic funnels past Nigerian waters on the long haul to Europe, that threat does not shrink — it grows, and it grows against a security posture that has not visibly scaled to match it.
GOVERNANCE, NOT GEOGRAPHY, IS THE GAP
Industry voices in South Africa have already diagnosed their own version of this failure in stark terms, is insisting the issue is not geography but execution: infrastructure, regulation, and the will to compete for business that is, quite literally, passing offshore. Where shipping lines seek alternatives to traditional routes, that opens opportunities for local ports, logistics operators, ship repair facilities, bunkering providers and maritime security operators to grow.
That same test now sits in front of Nigeria. The Saudi tankers steaming past this week are not a one-off curiosity. They are six more data points in a shift that has already rewritten shipping economics for the whole continent. The trip round Africa adds roughly ten days and demands more fuel and crew time, driving up costs for every operator making the journey. Every one of those extra days is revenue waiting for a coastline willing to organize itself to collect it, a test Nigeria’s maritime institutions have yet to show up for.
Blue Economy
Lekki Port Lands HMM-ONE Alliance Service, Boosts Nigeria’s Direct Global Shipping Links
Lekki Port Lands HMM-ONE Alliance Service, Boosts Nigeria’s Direct Global Shipping Links
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
Lekki Deep Sea Port has notched another milestone in its bid to establish itself as West Africa’s premier maritime gateway, welcoming the maiden call of a new joint container service operated by Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and Ocean Network Express (ONE).
The port received the inaugural vessel under the newly launched Mediterranean West Africa Service (MA2) on Saturday, July 25, 2026, adding another direct link between the Nigerian deep seaport and major hubs across Europe and West Africa.
Port management says the new rotation should translate into more frequent direct vessel calls, quicker cargo evacuation, and a stronger competitive position for Nigeria in regional and international trade.
Lekki Port Managing Director Wang Qiang called the maiden call a strong vote of confidence in the facility’s infrastructure and operational efficiency, noting that international carriers’ willingness to route through Lekki reflects growing trust in the port’s capacity to handle major liner traffic.
He said the addition to the MA2 rotation opens up new trade opportunities for shippers and reinforces Lekki’s ambition of becoming West Africa’s leading logistics gateway.
Industry watchers expect the service to give Nigerian importers and exporters more scheduling flexibility and more predictable transit times, while easing some of the bottlenecks that have historically dogged cargo movement between Nigeria and European markets. Manufacturers and agricultural exporters in particular stand to benefit from steadier access to overseas buyers through a regular liner rotation.
Since opening for commercial business, Lekki Deep Sea Port has drawn a growing roster of global shipping lines, banking on its deep draught, modern handling equipment, and faster turnaround times to differentiate itself from Nigeria’s older, more congested terminals.
Nigeria Watch
The HMM-ONE call is worth reading against the backdrop of what Lekki was built to fix. For decades, Nigerian cargo bound for Europe routed through transshipment hubs like Tema, Cotonou, or even ports further afield, adding cost, time, and risk that Apapa and Tin Can Island’s chronic gridlock only made worse. A direct alliance service naming Lekki in its West Africa rotation is a signal that at least one deep seaport in the country can compete on draught, turnaround, and predictability, all terms that matter to carriers.
But one alliance call does not settle the larger argument. Nigeria’s port sector still carries structural drag, the NPA’s stalled $1 billion modernisation ambitions for the older Lagos terminals, unresolved concession renewal anxieties among existing operators, and an Electronic Call-Up System that has yet to fully tame the Apapa corridor. If Lekki’s gains simply widen the gap with legacy terminals rather than pulling the whole system up, the win will be lopsided, one gateway thriving while NPA-controlled ports continue to bleed time and money to congestion.
There is a policy question the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy and NIMASA need to keep asking. Is Nigeria converting improved shipping access into real export growth, or just cheaper imports?
A liner service is only as valuable as what moves through it in both directions. Unless agricultural and manufactured exporters actually scale up shipments through Lekki, the “improved global connectivity” story risks being another headline that doesn’t reach the balance of trade.
Business
Lagos Ports Choke Point: NPA Logs 16 Ships Waiting to Berth, Braces for 28 More Arrivals in Five Days
Lagos Ports Choke Point: NPA Logs 16 Ships Waiting to Berth, Braces for 28 More Arrivals in Five Days
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
Nigeria’s Lagos ports are staring down another week of heavy vessel traffic, as the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) confirmed that 16 ships are currently anchored off Lekki Deep Sea Port, Tin Can Island Port and Apapa Port awaiting berthing space, with 28 additional vessels expected to arrive between July 22 and July 26. The disclosure was contained in the NPA’s daily Shipping Position released on Wednesday in Lagos, a routine bulletin that nonetheless offers a revealing snapshot of just how dependent Nigeria’s busiest port complex remains on imported fuel, food and industrial raw materials.
According to the authority, the vessels currently waiting to discharge are carrying a mixed manifest of petrol, aviation fuel and diesel alongside bulk wheat, bulk fertiliser, bulk urea and bulk sugar, plus general cargo. It is a cargo profile that has become familiar at Nigerian ports: fuel and food, arriving in near-equal measure, queued up behind one another for scarce berthing windows.
The pressure is not expected to ease soon. The NPA said the 28 vessels billed to arrive over the coming days are loaded with bulk wheat, containerised cargo, fresh fish, petrol, trucks, fuel oil, diesel, crude oil, aviation fuel and general cargo, a schedule that, added to the ships already waiting, will keep berths at Apapa, Tin Can and Lekki under sustained strain through the weekend.
Meanwhile, port operations have not stalled. The authority reported that 21 ships are actively discharging cargo across the three terminals, offloading containers, petrol, aviation fuel, crude oil, bulk fertiliser, bulk gypsum, gas, diesel, bulk wheat, bulk sugar, bulk urea, fresh fish, general cargo and base oil, evidence that, congestion notwithstanding, throughput at Nigeria’s premier gateway ports continues at pace.
Perhaps the most striking element of the report is what it says about Nigeria’s fuel import dependence. Despite the ramp-up in domestic refining capacity since the Dangote Petroleum Refinery came on stream, a significant share of the vessels at anchor or inbound are still laden with premium motor spirit, automotive gas oil, aviation fuel and fuel oil. It is a reminder that local refining, however much ground it has gained, has not yet closed the gap between what Nigeria produces and what it consumes at the pump.
Taken together, the numbers point to a port system running close to capacity, fuel tankers, bulk carriers and container ships jostling for a limited number of berths, even as crude oil exports and refined product imports continue to move in parallel through the same gateway.
Nigeria Watch
For a country whose ports serve as the primary conduit for both its oil export earnings and its fuel security, a queue of 16 ships waiting to berth, with 28 more converging on Lagos within days, is not merely a logistics footnote. It is a live pressure test of infrastructure that has long struggled to keep pace with cargo volumes at Apapa and Tin Can Island in particular, both of which remain hemmed in by shallow drafts, ageing quay aprons and access-road gridlock that regularly spills into the Apapa-Oshodi corridor.
The persistence of large petrol, diesel and aviation fuel cargoes on the manifest, well over a year after Dangote Refinery began supplying the domestic market, is the detail industry watchers should sit with longest. It suggests that the substitution of imported refined products with local output remains partial, and that Nigeria’s downstream fuel security still rests substantially on seaborne imports arriving through Lagos. That dependence carries fresh weight given the unfolding Strait of Hormuz crisis, where rising war risk insurance premiums, seafarer deployment restrictions from source countries like India and the Philippines, and tighter tanker availability are already pushing up freight costs on routes serving West Africa. Any prolongation of that crisis would be felt first at berths exactly like these, where PMS and AGO cargoes queue for discharge.
There is also a capacity argument buried in this traffic report that reinforces the case for Lekki Deep Sea Port to absorb a larger share of Lagos-bound cargo, easing pressure on the constrained, decades-old infrastructure at Apapa and Tin Can. With concession renewal talks at both older terminals still unresolved, and the Nigerian Ports Authority yet to deliver the kind of berth-productivity gains that would meaningfully cut turnaround times, congestion of this scale is likely to remain a recurring feature of the Lagos shipping position rather than an isolated week’s anomaly. For Nigerian shippers, freight forwarders and importers already contending with elevated global freight rates, that is a cost that ultimately lands on the consumer.
Source: NPA
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