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Charting the Course: How Hydrography Powers Nigeria’s Blue Economy, Ports Efficiency and Maritime Safety
Charting the Course: How Hydrography Powers Nigeria’s Blue Economy, Ports Efficiency and Maritime Safety
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News | LAGOS — June 21, 2026
Beneath every cargo ship gliding into Apapa, every fishing canoe pushing off from a riverine jetty in Bayelsa, and every barge moving petroleum products up the Niger, lies a science that rarely makes headlines but quietly decides whether that journey ends safely or in tragedy. That science is hydrography.
Today, as the global maritime community marks World Hydrography Day, Nigeria joins the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) and its member states to spotlight a discipline that has become inseparable from the country’s ambitions for its ports, its blue economy and the safety of its waterways.
A Theme Built for the Moment
This year’s global theme, “Transforming How Ocean Data Is Shared,” centres on the rollout of the IHO’s S-100 universal hydrographic data standard, particularly the S-101 Electronic Navigational Charts and S-102 Bathymetric Surface products now approved by the International Maritime Organisation for use in next-generation Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS).
Nigeria held its official commemoration in Lagos on June 20, ahead of the global observance, with the National Hydrographic Agency (NHA) leading the charge. The Hydrographer of the Federation and NHA Chief Executive, Rear Admiral Olumide Fadahunsi, told reporters in Abuja that the theme, though technical at its core, was deliberately framed in plain language to draw in policymakers, port operators, freight forwarders, researchers and the wider public — the very audience that depends on accurate ocean data without ever necessarily seeing it.
Hydrographer of the Federation and CEO of the National Hydrographic Agency (NHA), Rear Admiral Olumide Fadahunsi
Fadahunsi described hydrography as the bedrock of maritime safety, ocean governance and environmental protection, noting that standardising and sharing ocean data more efficiently would help Nigeria cut navigational risk and strengthen the efficiency of both regional and global sea lanes.
From the Navy to a Dedicated Agency
For decades, hydrographic and charting responsibility in Nigeria sat with the Nigerian Navy Hydrographic Office (NNHO), operating under the 1999 Constitution and the Armed Forces Act. That changed in 2022, when an Act of Parliament established the NHA as a standalone civilian agency, formally taking over hydrographic, oceanographic and tidal functions while continuing close cooperation with the Navy on survey operations and national security.
The NHA’s mandate now spans production of digital and paper navigational charts, broadcasting of maritime safety information, tidal prediction, regulation of all surveying activity in Nigerian waters — including offshore and inland areas — and support for the Blue Economy through marine data services. Earlier this year, the agency commissioned the International Centre for Electronic Navigational Charts (IC-ENC) West African Regional Office and Training Centre in Abuja, positioning Nigeria as a regional hub for ENC production, validation and hydrographic training across West Africa.
Surveying the Seabed That Carries the Cargo
Nowhere is the link between hydrography and commerce more direct than at Nigeria’s ports. Every dredging campaign, berth expansion and channel deepening at Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Calabar, Warri, Port Harcourt and the new Lekki Deep Sea Port depends on bathymetric survey data, much of it processed through the Nigerian Ports Authority’s own Hydrographic Services department working alongside the NHA and Navy.
That underwater groundwork is now showing up in the numbers. The NPA’s Q1 2026 Operational Performance Review recorded a 19.5 per cent jump in gross registered tonnage for ocean-going vessels calling at Nigerian ports, to 46.75 million, alongside an 11.6 per cent rise in cargo throughput to 32.38 million metric tons. Outward laden container traffic surged 67.6 per cent year-on-year, while transshipment container activity climbed by 83.1 per cent — gains the NPA’s Managing Director, Dr Abubakar Dantsoho, has linked to terminal efficiency improvements and the growing pull of larger vessels into deeper, better-charted channels, including at the Lekki facility.
Yet Dantsoho has been candid about how much room remains. Nigeria currently handles only about 25 per cent of West Africa’s cargo traffic despite accounting for more than 60 per cent of the sub-region’s GDP — a gap he attributes partly to infrastructure and efficiency constraints that ongoing port modernisation, digitalisation and private-sector project financing are meant to close.
A Blue Economy Finding Its Depth
The Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy has tied much of this momentum to its broader reform agenda. Revenue from agencies under the ministry rose from N700.79 billion in 2023 to roughly N1.83 trillion in 2025, according to Minister Adegboyega Oyetola, as Nigeria pushes port modernisation, a Trade Single Window, a Port Community System and new deep seaports to position itself as West Africa’s maritime hub under the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Accurate, current hydrographic data underwrites nearly all of it: from charting new deep seaport approaches at Ibom, Badagry and Bonny, to supporting offshore oil, gas and renewable energy exploration, to guiding the siting of fishing and aquaculture zones. As the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, noted earlier this year, more than 85 per cent of Nigeria’s trade by volume moves through its waters — making the seabed beneath that trade a strategic national asset in its own right.
Safety Beneath the Surface
Maritime safety gains have followed a similar pattern of quiet, data-driven progress. Nigeria has now gone more than four years without a recorded piracy incident in its waters, a run security analysts attribute to the Deep Blue maritime security programme and tighter surveillance, complementing the navigational-hazard data that hydrographic surveys feed into ENC updates and wreck-clearance operations.
Inland, the picture is more sobering. Recurring boat mishaps on rivers such as the Benue continue to claim lives each rainy season, prompting the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau’s ongoing probe into a recent fatal accident and renewed federal distribution of life jackets to riverine communities. Much of inland Nigeria’s waterway network still lacks the dense, modern bathymetric coverage available in Lagos Harbour and the Lower Niger corridor between Lokoja and Onitsha, where the NHA has produced new paper charts in recent years. Officials argue that extending S-100-standard charting inland — covering shifting sandbanks, siltation and submerged hazards — is as much a safety imperative as a commercial one.
Charting Sustainability
Hydrography’s environmental dimension is increasingly explicit in Nigeria’s official messaging. The NHA has linked this year’s WHD observance to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 on life below water and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), framing better ocean data as essential to conservation, sustainable resource use and coastal climate resilience. That thinking dovetails with Nigeria’s wider decarbonisation push in the sector — from electric ferry financing on the Lagos waterways to growing interest in wave and offshore renewable energy — all of which require precise seabed and current data to plan safely and sustainably.
Nigeria Watch
For an industry audience used to tracking freight rates, concession terms and CVFF disbursements, hydrography can look like background infrastructure — invisible until something goes wrong. But the figures above tell a different story: every gain in cargo throughput, every additional point of GDP the blue economy captures, and every life saved on an inland waterway traces back, at some point, to a sounding line, a survey vessel or a chart update most stakeholders will never see.
The risk is that hydrography remains underfunded precisely because its returns are diffuse rather than headline-grabbing. The NHA’s 2022 founding, its new West African ENC training hub and the Navy’s recapitalised survey fleet are real progress. But with Nigeria still trailing its own cargo-traffic potential, and rural waterway accidents recurring with painful regularity, the case for treating hydrographic capacity — survey vessels, trained personnel, inland river charting, S-100 adoption — as core blue economy infrastructure, not a technical afterthought, has rarely been stronger. On a day set aside to honour the science behind safe seas, that is the investment case Nigeria’s maritime stakeholders should be making to the National Assembly and the wider industry alike.
Raymond Gold is a Co-publisher and Research Reporter with Waterways News (waterwaysnews.ng), covering Nigeria’s ports, blue economy and maritime regulatory affairs.
Featured
IMO Sets First-Ever Two-Year Theme for World Maritime Day, Tasks Member States to Move “From Policy to Practice”
IMO Sets First-Ever Two-Year Theme for World Maritime Day, Tasks Member States to Move “From Policy to Practice”
By Emetena Ikuku | Waterways News
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has adopted “From Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence” as its World Maritime Day theme for both 2026 and 2027, marking the first time in the observance’s history that a single theme will run for a full two-year cycle instead of the usual one.
The decision was endorsed by the IMO Council at its 134th session in London, held from July 7 to 11, on a proposal from IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez. World Maritime Day will continue to fall on the last Thursday of September each year, with 2026 and 2027 both marked under the same theme.
IMO explained that the extended timeframe reflects a deliberate shift in focus, from the adoption of new rules to ensuring those already on the books are actually applied. According to the organisation, “From Policy to Practice” speaks to its core mandate: making sure that conventions, codes and guidelines agreed at the international level are translated into national law, enforced consistently, and embedded in the daily operations of ports, ships and administrations worldwide, rather than existing only on paper.
The “Powering” element of the theme points to the practical support IMO intends to deploy to help member states close that implementation gap, including technical assistance, training programmes, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing partnerships aimed at strengthening maritime administrations and port state control regimes. “Maritime Excellence,” the organisation says, describes the end goal: a shipping industry that is safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sound, held to the highest international standards and committed to continuous improvement.
In a video message announcing the campaign, Dominguez said the true test of the global regulatory framework lies in implementation, stressing that when the industry talks about “practice,” it is ultimately talking about people, and that IMO is committed to powering that transition through direct technical cooperation and support.
IMO has invited member states, industry stakeholders and the public to join the campaign using the hashtags #WorldMaritimeDay and #MaritimePolicytoPractice as national and regional activities roll out over the two-year period.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigeria, a theme built entirely around closing the gap between policy and practice lands close to home. It is, in many ways, the exact fault line this desk has tracked for years across the country’s maritime sector: regulations that exist in full on paper but struggle to survive contact with implementation on the water.
The theme’s emphasis on national legislation, enforcement and day-to-day operations speaks directly to open questions around NIMASA’s cabotage regime and the long-delayed disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), to the jurisdictional tug-of-war between NIWA and LASWA over inland waterways regulation even after Supreme Court intervention, and to the practical rollout of the NPERA Act now that the agency has formally begun operations. Each of these is, at bottom, a policy-to-practice story still waiting for its second half to be written.
It also speaks pointedly to the everyday reality of Nigeria’s informal and small-scale waterway operators, represented by bodies like WABOTAN and ATBOWATON, who often experience federal and state maritime policy not as technical assistance and capacity-building, but as enforcement action with little of the promised support attached. If IMO’s two-year campaign is genuinely about “translating international rules into action at sea and on shore,” as the organisation puts it, Nigerian regulators have an unusually clean, IMO-endorsed framework to be measured against between now and 2027, and operators on the inland waterways will be watching to see whether “powering” the transition includes powering their own long-stalled asset financing and safety upgrades, not just headline compliance targets aimed at the deep-sea fleet only.
With Nigeria holding a seat on the IMO Council, the country also carries a diplomatic stake in how visibly it is seen to be putting the theme into practice at home over the coming biennium.
Blue Economy
Oyetola Sets Up Technical Committee to Fast-Track Fish Production, Cut Nigeria’s Import Bill
Oyetola Sets Up Technical Committee to Fast-Track Fish Production, Cut Nigeria’s Import Bill
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy has begun moving from policy talk to implementation on fish production, with the Minister, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, inaugurating a Technical Committee on Accelerating Fish Production in Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday.
Oyetola said the committee’s job was to convert existing recommendations into coordinated action that can deliver measurable gains in the country’s fisheries and aquaculture sector, rather than produce another policy document.
He noted that fish remains a major source of animal protein for millions of Nigerians, and that the fisheries and aquaculture value chain sustains livelihoods across production, processing, marketing and transportation. But domestic output still falls well short of national demand, he said, with knock-on effects for food security, household incomes and the country’s foreign exchange position.
The Minister listed the sector’s key constraints as high production costs, particularly feed, poor access to quality fish seed and broodstock, weak fish-health and biosecurity systems, post-harvest losses, and inadequate cold-chain and storage infrastructure. He also pointed to limited access to affordable finance, thin research and data systems, and gaps in standards, traceability and market development.
Oyetola said the recent transfer of fisheries and aquaculture functions to his ministry gave the sector a stronger institutional platform, and reaffirmed government’s commitment to growing sustainable domestic production and cutting Nigeria’s reliance on fish imports.
The committee’s work builds on a strategic roundtable the ministry convened with the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) on October 29, 2025, which produced a set of recommendations on production and value-chain bottlenecks. Members have been asked to test each recommendation against existing national policy, laws and institutional mandates, deciding whether it should be adopted, refined, folded into current programmes, studied further, or dropped and to map ongoing public, private and development-sector initiatives so scarce resources are not duplicated.
Oyetola said the committee’s final output must include a clear implementation roadmap and matrix covering priority interventions, responsible institutions, timelines, indicative costs, funding options, performance indicators and required approvals, along with credible entry points for private investment, public-private partnerships and development finance.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mrs Fatima Sugra Mahmood, who chairs the committee, pledged a thorough review process aimed at practical, measurable interventions. Prof Akintola Shehu Latunji of Lagos State University, speaking for other members, thanked the Minister and committed the committee to working with stakeholders to boost fish production nationwide.
Other members include Mr Omoragbon Wellington and Mr Garba Usman of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture; Prof Ayo Omotayo of NIPSS; Prof Sule Abiodun of the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research; Prof Sadiku Suleiman Omeiza of the Federal University of Technology, Minna; Bayelsa State’s Commissioner for Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Faith Izibenua Zibs-Godwin; Dr Charles Okaga, Technical Assistant to the Minister; Dr Ebinimi Ansa of the Fisheries Society of Nigeria; Mr Onoja Sunday of the Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria; Mr Mashi Gabriel Sani of the Fisheries Cooperative Federation of Nigeria; Mr Remi Ahmed of the Tilapia Development Association of Nigeria; and Dr Charles Iyangbe of WorldFish Nigeria.
The committee has eight weeks to submit its report.
Nigeria Watch
Fish production is not a subject Waterways News covers often, but it sits squarely inside the blue economy mandate this Ministry now carries and it is worth watching for the same reason CVFF, NPERA and NIMASA reforms are worth watching: Nigeria has no shortage of roundtables, committees and roadmaps; what it has historically lacked is follow-through.
Oyetola’s own framing, “your assignment is not to develop another policy”, reads as an implicit acknowledgment of that pattern, and an eight-week deadline is a useful marker for readers to hold the ministry to. The emphasis on cold-chain and storage infrastructure, and on post-harvest losses, also echoes concerns Waterways News has tracked on the inland waterways side, where WABOTAN and ATBOWATON operators regularly cite poor storage and logistics as a drag on returns from fish and other perishable cargo moved by water. A serious fisheries roadmap that funds cold-chain and market infrastructure along riverine routes would have direct relevance for the informal waterway transport economy this desk covers closely.
Whether this committee’s report becomes another shelved document or an actual funding and implementation pipeline is the story to follow when the eight weeks are up.
Blue Economy
NPERA Charges Staff on New Mandate as Akutah Eyes $1 Trillion Economy, Pledges Harmony with Sister Agencies
NPERA Charges Staff on New Mandate as Akutah Eyes $1 Trillion Economy, Pledges Harmony with Sister Agencies
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The newly transitioned Nigeria Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) has told its workforce that the agency’s expanded powers must translate into measurable gains for the maritime sector, as its chief executive moved to calm anxieties over possible turf conflicts with other port institutions.
Speaking at a townhall session with staff, NPERA’s Director-General, Dr Pius Akutah, said the agency’s new statutory footing, created under the Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency Act, 2026, leaves no room for institutional rivalry, since the law spells out NPERA’s role as the ports’ economic regulator distinctly from the operational and infrastructure mandates held by other agencies.
Akutah described the President’s assent to the Act as a breakthrough for the maritime industry, saying the reinforced regulatory powers position the agency to curb sharp practices and drive efficiency at the ports. He urged staff to raise their professional standards to match the agency’s new responsibilities, and said NPERA intends to work closely with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in particular, alongside other sister agencies, to deepen reforms and improve service delivery across the ports.
He linked the agency’s broadened mandate directly to government’s wider ambition of building a $1 trillion economy, arguing that a more predictable and business-friendly port environment is central to that goal.
The remarks follow the formal transition of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) into NPERA, a process more than a decade in the making. NPERA Governing Board chairman, Dr Ibrahim Shema, has described the change as a structural separation of economic regulation from the NPA’s landlord and infrastructure functions, with NPERA’s approach to be anchored on transparency, fairness, predictability, efficiency and accountability. Both officials have stressed that NPA retains its infrastructure role while NPERA takes on tariff regulation, licensing, competition oversight and commercial dispute resolution.
NIGERIA WATCH
Every new regulator in Nigeria’s port and maritime space arrives with the same reassurance: this one won’t fight the agencies already there. NPERA’s rollout is no exception, and the emphasis on “harmony” with NPA is itself a tell — it signals that stakeholders, including operators and shippers who have lived through NIMASA-NPA and NIWA-LASWA turf disputes, are watching closely for the first sign of overlap.
For the informal and small-scale end of the water transport economy that Waterways News tracks — the operators represented by WABOTAN and ATBOWATON — NPERA’s mandate is, on paper, encouraging. A regulator empowered to resolve commercial disputes and rein in unapproved charges could, if it functions as designed, extend some protection to smaller port users who have historically had the least leverage against terminal operators and shipping lines. But the sector’s experience with the CVFF disbursement saga is a caution against measuring reform by its founding rhetoric alone. An agency can be transparent on paper about “five principles” and still take years to deliver anything an ordinary operator can point to.
The real test for NPERA, as with NPERA’s own DG has implicitly acknowledged by tasking his staff before the agency has even settled into its new powers, will be whether tariff clarity and faster dispute resolution reach beyond the big shipping lines and terminal operators to the smaller players who move goods and people along Nigeria’s waterways every day. Waterways News will be watching how NPERA’s mandate is implemented in practice, not just how it is announced.
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