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LAWMA’s Marine Unit Takes Falomo Fight to the Water, Issues Ebola Waste Alert
LAWMA’s Marine Unit Takes Falomo Fight to the Water, Issues Ebola Waste Alert
Lagos waste authority deploys marine assets for World Environment Day cleanup, then pivots to public health frontline over East Africa Ebola scare
By Oghenewoke Osaweren | Waterways News Correspondent
In a weekend that underscored the expanding operational reach of Lagos State’s waste management infrastructure, the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) deployed its Marine Unit to the Falomo Waterways in Ikoyi on Thursday, June 4, to lead a high-visibility aquatic cleanup alongside Zenith Bank Plc and the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA) — part of the global commemoration of World Environment Day 2026.
The marine operation, which mobilised twenty LAWMA officials supported by scores of Zenith Bank volunteers, was framed around this year’s United Nations Environment Programme theme: “Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future.” For LAWMA’s Marine department, however, the exercise was less about symbolism and more about operational muscle — deploying trash nets, compactor trucks, waste bags, bins, and full logistical support to extract debris from one of Lagos Island’s most commercially active inland waterway corridors.
The waterways component of the initiative was executed in collaboration with LAWMA and LASWA, with the joint effort focused on removing marine debris, promoting cleaner waterways, and supporting the state’s broader climate-resilience agenda.
The Falomo Waterways, which serves as a critical artery connecting the Ikoyi shoreline to the broader Lagos Lagoon network, has historically been among the city’s most debris-prone corridors — a consequence of unregulated discharge from adjoining commercial and residential zones. Thursday’s deployment marked a direct state and private-sector intervention into a problem that maritime operators and boat operators have long flagged as a navigational and environmental hazard.
Speaking on the initiative, Zenith Bank’s Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dame Dr. Adaora Umeoji, OON, said the bank’s operations would continue to align with global environmental standards as it works toward building a more sustainable future for Nigeria and Africa.
For Waterways News readers, the more substantive dimension of the exercise is institutional: the involvement of LAWMA’s Marine Unit — rather than a land-based waste crew — signals a deliberate repositioning of the authority’s aquatic operational capacity. Historically, marine debris management on Lagos waterways has suffered from fragmented agency mandates, with LAWMA’s land-focused structure often leaving the waterway corridors to LASWA’s enforcement remit. Thursday’s deployment suggests a more integrated model is taking shape.
Ebola Shadow Prompts Separate Medical Waste Directive
One day after the Falomo cleanup, LAWMA’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, moved the authority onto a second front — issuing a formal precautionary advisory to hospitals, medical waste handlers, transporters, and treatment operators across Lagos State, triggered by the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak currently spreading through parts of East Africa.
Dr. Gbadegesin clarified that there was currently no confirmed case of Ebola Virus Disease in Lagos State or anywhere in Nigeria, stressing that the advisory was purely precautionary.
The advisory is nonetheless significant for the maritime and port health community. Lagos handles the highest volume of international maritime traffic in West Africa, with the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports processing tens of thousands of crew members and port workers annually. Any biosafety lapse in the management of infectious medical waste within the port health corridor has direct implications for vessel sanitation, crew welfare, and Nigeria’s compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR) administered through the World Health Organization.
Dr. Gbadegesin said preparedness remains critical to preventing the spread of infectious diseases, stressing that effective medical waste management is a key component of public health protection, with healthcare facilities required to reinforce infection prevention and control measures and maintain vigilance against emerging public health threats.
The directive specifically targets the segregation of infectious waste at source — a procedural standard that maritime health authorities and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Port Health Services are equally bound to enforce under the IHR framework. Waterways.ng understands that compliance gaps in ship-generated medical waste handling at Lagos anchorage zones have been a recurring concern in port health audits.
LAWMA urged medical waste handlers and transporters to adhere to approved collection, transportation, treatment, and disposal procedures for infectious waste, while ensuring consistent use of protective equipment during operations.
Dr. Gbadegesin said LAWMA would continue to support preparedness efforts through regular monitoring, compliance enforcement, and engagement with stakeholders in the health sector, while reassuring residents that Lagos State remained on high alert with active surveillance, preparedness, and response systems to protect public health.
Nigeria Watch
The convergence of two LAWMA actions within 48 hours — a waterway cleanup and an infectious disease waste advisory — is not coincidental. It maps directly onto the dual pressure points facing Lagos as a maritime megacity: the chronic environmental degradation of its inland waterway network, and the biosafety vulnerabilities that come with being Nigeria’s principal port gateway.
Both challenges demand more than annual symbolic exercises. What Lagos waterways require is a permanent, well-resourced marine waste management infrastructure, and what its ports need is a robust, IHR-compliant infectious waste protocol that is enforced year-round — not only when East Africa is in the news.
Waterways News | Nigeria’s Maritime Record
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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