Blue Economy
African Ports at Risk of Ceding Trade Leverage as Infrastructure Gaps Widen
African Ports at Risk of Ceding Trade Leverage as Infrastructure Gaps Widen
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News Reporter
Africa’s ports are sounding alarm bells. From the Gulf of Guinea to the East African coastline, a convergence of ageing infrastructure, foreign operator dominance, escalating climate compliance costs, and a deepening $14 billion investment deficit is threatening to strip the continent of its hard-won leverage in global maritime trade.
Industry leaders, port managers, and maritime economists are increasingly united in their warning: without urgent, strategic investment, Africa could find itself managing cargo for the world while capturing little of the value.
Nigeria at the Centre — But Not Immune
Nigeria sits in a commanding position within West and Central Africa’s maritime landscape. According to Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and President of the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA), Nigeria currently handles more than 70 per cent of cargo traffic across the sub-region — a dominance built on its large population, strategic location, and its role as the gateway for landlocked neighbours including Niger, Chad, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
“Our market extends beyond Nigeria because several landlocked countries depend on Nigerian ports,” Dantsoho said at the close of the PMAWCA Mid-Year Session held in Lagos. “But to sustain that advantage, we must provide deeper waters, stronger quays and modern infrastructure that can accommodate bigger ships.”
Yet that advantage is under threat. Nigeria’s legacy ports — Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Warri, and Calabar — continue to suffer from infrastructural decay, shallow draught limitations, and inefficient cargo evacuation corridors. The average vessel turnaround time at Nigerian ports stands at seven days, against one to two days in developed maritime economies. Regional competitors in Ghana, Togo, and Benin Republic are increasingly exploiting that gap.
Who Owns the Cranes?
Beneath the infrastructure deficit lies a deeper and more complex challenge: the question of who controls Africa’s ports.
Across the continent, ownership of port operations has been consolidating in the hands of a small group of global terminal operators. While African governments generally retain land ownership, the operational levers — and the pricing power that comes with them — are increasingly exercised by foreign firms. Chinese companies, particularly China Merchants Port, have a recurring presence along Africa’s coastline, drawing scrutiny over sovereignty concerns. Yet analysts note the real risk is less about nationality and more about structural dependency.
Once concession contracts are signed and infrastructure committed, African port authorities have limited room to renegotiate. Pricing power, operational standards, and logistics decisions can drift away from local hands — quietly, contractually, and often irreversibly.
The lesson for Nigeria and its neighbours is stark: ports are not merely trade infrastructure. They are leverage points. Ceding their operation without robust regulatory oversight and performance benchmarks is ceding economic sovereignty, one terminal at a time.
The Climate Compliance Trap
Adding urgency to the investment challenge is a wave of new global maritime emissions regulations that risk landing disproportionately on African nations.
At a recent regional workshop in Abuja — described by participants as the first time African countries have coordinated at scale on maritime decarbonisation — experts warned that the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) evolving carbon pricing framework could raise costs for African ports and shipping lines without delivering corresponding climate benefits to the continent.
Africa contributes the least to global maritime emissions yet faces the greatest structural constraints in adapting to new rules. A critical vulnerability: of the 44 African countries that are IMO members, only 18 have ratified the MARPOL Annex VI treaty, meaning most are ineligible to vote on the policies that will govern their ports’ futures.
Omar Touray, President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), put the paradox plainly: “Africa contributes the least to global emissions, yet faces the greatest constraints.” He called on policymakers to prioritise port efficiency and trade competitiveness rather than impose compliance burdens that serve distant agendas.
The Shipyard Gap: Revenue Haemorrhage Hiding in Plain Sight
Another dimension of Africa’s eroding maritime leverage rarely makes front-page news: the near-total absence of functional shipyard infrastructure across West Africa.
The African Maritime Council has raised concerns about the scale of maritime revenue leaving the region for repairs, dry-docking, and marine engineering services that African yards cannot yet provide. Despite over 1,200 vessels operating across offshore support, tanker operations, cargo trade, and fishing activities along the Gulf of Guinea, the bulk of ship repair and maintenance spending flows abroad.
This is not a marginal issue. Ship repair activities generate high-value industrial activity — steel fabrication, hull engineering, marine coatings, structural inspections, towage, and port services. Without indigenous shipyard capacity, West Africa is effectively subsidising the maritime industries of Europe and Asia while its own ports handle the traffic.
Lekki and the Road Not Yet Taken
There are reasons for cautious optimism. The Lekki Deep Sea Port, which began operations in 2023, has drawn attention as a model of what is possible when policy intent, private capital, and public infrastructure align. Minister of Marine and Blue Economy Dr. Adegboyega Oyetola has pointed to Lekki as evidence of Africa’s capacity to meet global maritime standards.
Nigeria’s 823-kilometre coastline, extensive inland waterways network, and proximity to major Atlantic shipping routes give it structural advantages that no policy gap can entirely negate. The Federal Government’s ongoing reforms under the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy — including the expected activation of the National Single Window for cargo clearance — could, if fully executed, cut average cargo dwell time from over 18 days to under seven.
But Dantsoho’s message at the PMAWCA meetings was sobering: ambition without investment is a promise without a foundation. “No nation can grow its GDP without substantial investment in efficient and modern port infrastructure,” he said. Africa’s ports are not yet lost to foreign operators or obsolescence. But the window for self-determined transformation is narrowing.
What Must Be Done
Regional maritime stakeholders are converging on a common prescription:
Infrastructure first. Deep-water ports, mechanised terminals, and modern quay infrastructure must be fast-tracked across West and Central Africa. Refurbishment of legacy ports is a bridge solution, not an answer.
Stronger concession governance. Public-private partnerships must come with performance benchmarks, transparent pricing oversight, and genuine accountability structures — not just capital inflows and long-term operational handovers.
Regional solidarity at the IMO. African nations must ratify the necessary treaties to claim their voting rights and coordinate a common position on maritime emissions policies before compliance costs are imposed on them without their input.
Invest in shipyards. The West African maritime economy is haemorrhaging industrial revenue that could be captured locally. Establishing viable shipyard hubs — potentially through regional financing under AfCFTA frameworks — would help close this gap.
Harness inland waterways. For Nigeria specifically, the country’s estimated 10,000 kilometres of navigable inland waterways remain vastly underutilised. Greater integration of inland ports and waterway transport with coastal port infrastructure would reduce congestion, lower logistics costs, and extend Nigeria’s maritime advantage deeper into the sub-region.
Africa’s ports handle the continent’s trade. The question is whether Africa will also hold the leverage that comes with it. The answer will not be settled by declarations at summits, but by the investments, regulations, and regional coalitions built — or not built — in the years immediately ahead.
Waterways News covers Nigeria’s maritime, shipping, and inland waterways sectors. Follow us for updates on port policy, blue economy developments, and trade infrastructure across the Gulf of Guinea
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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