Business
NPA Deploys Multi-Agency Task Force as Apapa Gridlock Resurfaces
NPA Deploys Multi-Agency Task Force as Apapa Gridlock Resurfaces
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has stood up a multi-agency task force to confront the return of traffic gridlock on the Lagos port access corridor, in a renewed effort to keep cargo moving and protect gains recorded in port efficiency.
The move follows a stakeholders’ meeting convened by NPA Managing Director, Dr Abubakar Dantsoho, on June 23, where security agencies, freight forwarders, truck operators and Lagos State Government representatives agreed on coordinated steps to clear the bottlenecks disrupting cargo evacuation.
Participants at the meeting traced the renewed congestion to illegal extortion points along the corridor, overlapping mandates among security agencies, and other operational distortions undermining traffic flow.
NPA’s General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications, Mr Ikechukwu Onyemakara, said guaranteeing unhindered cargo movement to and from the nation’s seaports remains the Authority’s overriding priority.
The task force draws membership from the NPA, the Nigeria Police, the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), and the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO).
Its mandate, Onyemakara explained, is to monitor truck movement on the access roads continuously, flag any disruption capable of triggering gridlock, and resolve such issues immediately.
He clarified that task force members will not mount checkpoints along the corridor, but will instead maintain a strategic presence at designated points to enforce compliance without slowing traffic themselves. To speed up response, the task force has set up a dedicated WhatsApp platform for members to report infractions or emerging problems in real time.
On the long-stalled renewal of the Electronic Truck Call-Up (ETO) system contract, Onyemakara said the Authority is reviewing the terms to secure a stronger contractual framework before a fresh agreement is awarded. He noted that although the previous contract has expired, the ETO platform remains functional under the Truck Transit Parks (TTP), pending conclusion of the procurement process, and expressed confidence that renewal would be finalised soon.
Onyemakara tied the intervention to NPA’s broader push for port competitiveness, noting the Authority’s interest in free-flowing logistics outweighs anyone else’s, since it directly serves NPA’s own operational goals. He pointed to Nigeria’s recent international recognition, including a World Bank report, as validation of the reforms already under way, and pledged that the Authority remains committed to sustaining — and surpassing — those gains.
Nigeria Watch
A WhatsApp group and a checkpoint-free patrol formula sound reasonable on paper, but Apapa has heard variations of this pledge before, and the corridor has gridlocked again regardless. The stakeholders’ own diagnosis — illegal extortion points and overlapping agency mandates — is not a new discovery. It has been the standing explanation for port road congestion for years, which raises the harder question the task force does not yet answer: why do the same extortion points and turf conflicts keep reasserting themselves after each round of “coordinated measures”?
The ETO contract lapse is instructive here too. An expired agreement limping along under interim management is precisely the kind of institutional drift that breeds the informal checkpoints and side payments stakeholders complain about. A digital call-up system without a properly renewed contractual backbone is a system running on goodwill, not governance — and goodwill has a short half-life on a corridor where trucks, touts and multiple uniformed agencies compete for the same lane.
If this task force is to outlast its predecessors, its test will not be the WhatsApp platform’s response time. It will be whether NPA and its partner agencies can close the institutional gaps — jurisdictional overlap, contract limbo, weak sanctions for extortion — that keep regenerating the very gridlock the task force exists to fight.
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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