Maritime Labour and Trade Union
MWUN President-General Urges Muslims to Honour Prophet’s Legacy of Love and Peace at Eid-el-Fitr
MWUN President-General Urges Muslims to Honour Prophet’s Legacy of Love and Peace at Eid-el-Fitr
By Okeoghene Onoriobe, Waterways News Correspondent, Lagos
The President-General of the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Comrade Francis Bunu Abi, has called on Muslim faithful to honour the spirit of Eid-el-Fitr by embracing the teachings of Prophet Mohammed — particularly his message of love, charity, and peaceful coexistence.
In a statement issued through the union’s Head of Media, John Kennedy Ikemefuna, Comrade Bunu urged Muslims not to treat the Eid celebration as a routine occasion, noting that the period following the Ramadan fast carries deep spiritual significance as a time of purity and renewed communion with Allah.
“Our faith in the Almighty Allah will be incomplete if, as Muslims, we cannot co-habit with our brothers and sisters of other faiths,” he said, stressing that shared humanity must be the foundation of mutual respect across religious divides. “Until we recognise this simple truth, peace will be difficult to come by.”
The Ijaw-born maritime expert and labour leader argued that Islam and Christianity draw from the same divine source, and that the differences between religions lie only in methods of worship — not in their ultimate destination. He emphasised that no individual holds the right to take another’s life in the name of religion.
Comrade Bunu extended his Eid-el-Fitr felicitations to Muslims across Nigeria and the world, and offered prayers for victims of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which he described as a needless fratricidal war that must end to prevent further loss of life and destruction of property.
He also directed a pointed message to armed groups terrorising communities in Nigeria’s North East and other troubled regions, calling on them to lay down their arms and embrace peace — in the true spirit of a Prophet who came to propagate Islam as a religion of love.
By Okeoghene Onoriobe, Waterways News Correspondent, Lagos
Nigeria Watch
While this message comes from the leadership of a maritime-sector union, its resonance extends beyond labour circles. The MWUN represents tens of thousands of dockworkers, seafarers, water transport and port-based workers drawn from every faith and ethnic group across Nigeria’s coastal and inland waterway communities. Inter-religious harmony is not merely a social ideal in this sector — it is an operational reality. Ports, terminals, and waterway hubs function only when diverse workforces collaborate with trust. Comrade Bunu’s appeal for tolerance and peaceful coexistence, framed around the Eid season, is also an implicit call to the maritime workforce to sustain the solidarity that keeps Nigeria’s blue economy moving.
Maritime Labour and Trade Union
NPA Pensioners Storm Marina Headquaters, Vow Escalation Over 16-Year Pension Freeze
NPA Pensioners Storm Marina Headquaters, Vow Escalation Over 16-Year Pension Freeze
Retirees earning as low as N30,000 monthly; nationwide ports shutdown possible
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News Correspondent
Scores of retired workers of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) descended on the agency’s Marina headquarters in Lagos on Monday, demanding immediate resolution of pension increments left unimplemented for nearly two decades — a standoff that has brought the spectre of nationwide port disruptions closer to reality.
The protesters, operating under the umbrella of the Nigerian Ports Authority Pensioners Welfare Association (NPAPWA), accused the NPA management of failing to fully implement statutory pension reviews as prescribed under Section 173(3) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
The demonstration drew a charged crowd of retirees bearing placards with stark messages. Inscriptions included: “Nigerian Ports Authority is owing its pensioners 16 years’ constitutional benefits,” “President Bola Tinubu, save our souls — NPA pensioners are dying daily; we need your intervention,” and “My pension is N30,000 per month, save my soul.” A 69-year-old woman was seen in tears during the demonstration.
Decades of Service, Peanuts in Return
The NPAPWA president, Charles Ayo Binitie, said the decision to protest follows years of frustration over the NPA management’s failure to implement the constitutionally mandated five-year pension increment, which he said has not been properly applied since 2008.
Binitie was unsparing in his assessment: “Notwithstanding the fact that the NPA remains a first-grade parastatal like the NNPC, its retirees are paid peanuts, and their so-called pay rise falls short of the constitutional provision in Section 173, Sub-Section 3. The law states that all pensioners are entitled to a pay rise every five years and whenever there is an increase for those in service; however, the management just adds whatever amount it likes, which mostly hovers between 3 and 11.5 percent.”
According to the retirees, some pensioners currently receive as low as N30,000 monthly, while previous increments described as arbitrary have proven wholly inadequate in the face of worsening economic hardship.
Former NPA worker James Igwe, who joined the agency in 1977, painted a grim picture of life after retirement. “I am still receiving N30,000. Many of us are now sick, paralysed and homeless. Some are sleeping in churches because we cannot pay rent. Our children are out of school, and many families have been scattered because of lack of money,” he told journalists.
Another pensioner, identified simply as Otaro, said he retired in 2006 during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and had struggled to survive ever since.
Suspended Shutdown, Not a Cancelled One
The protest follows earlier threats by the association to shut down port operations nationwide in April 2026, after issuing a seven-day ultimatum to the NPA. That planned shutdown was suspended following interventions by the Presidency, relevant government agencies, and NPA management — with negotiations over payment of arrears and pension reforms still ongoing.
Binitie made clear that Monday’s action was only a prelude to greater pressure. “Our protest is nationwide. The next protest will be larger and more aggressive, involving units in Lagos, Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt if our demands are not met,” he warned.
On documentation, Binitie alleged a critical administrative failure: the NPA had yet to furnish the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission with its documents for over 15 years, effectively blocking any upward review of pension entitlements.
Leadership Disputes Resolved
Binitie also addressed questions over NPAPWA’s internal cohesion. He pointed to a judgment by the Lagos High Court, Ikeja, which directed the association to hold an annual general meeting and conduct elections — processes that led to his emergence as president. A separate legal battle over alleged impersonation was resolved in September 2025, when a magistrate court in Apapa affirmed his leadership.
With internal disputes behind it, the association now insists it speaks with a single voice — and that voice is demanding urgent action.
Among their demands is a call on the federal government and relevant agencies to compel the NPA to implement all outstanding pension increases, including those tied to the 2024 minimum wage.
Nigeria Watch | Analysis for Maritime Sector Stakeholders
Monday’s protest at NPA’s Marina headquarters is not merely a welfare dispute — it carries direct implications for Nigeria’s port operations and the broader maritime economy.
For terminal operators and port users, the recurring threat of a port shutdown — even if suspended — introduces operational uncertainty into an environment already strained by congestion, infrastructure deficits, and cargo clearance bottlenecks. A coordinated withdrawal of participation by retiree associations, backed by active workers as observed during Monday’s demonstration, could cascade into disruptions at Lagos, Apapa, Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt terminals simultaneously.
The constitutional dimension is equally significant. Section 173(3) of the 1999 Constitution is unambiguous on pension review obligations — a point that, if tested in court, could expose the NPA to substantial financial liability. With over 16 years of increments left unimplemented, the backlog represents a contingent liability that NPA management and its supervising ministry have, thus far, declined to quantify publicly.
For freight forwarders, shipowners and logistics operators, the central question is how long the current diplomatic holding pattern — sustained by Presidency interventions — can contain grievances that are, by all accounts, deepening by the month. Until the NPA addresses the Wages Commission documentation gap and tables a credible arrears settlement framework, the threat of escalation remains real and the cost of inaction continues to compound.
Editor's Choice
Global Maritime Welfare Charity Expands Wellbeing Tracking Beyond the Ship’s Rail with New Shore-Based Index
Global Maritime Welfare Charity Expands Wellbeing Tracking Beyond the Ship’s Rail with New Shore-Based Index
The Mission to Seafarers launches the ShoreHI — a first-of-its-kind tool to measure happiness among maritime professionals on land
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News Correspondent
For nearly a decade, the maritime world has had a window into the emotional and psychological state of seafarers at sea. Now, a global welfare charity is turning that lens landward — and the people who manage Nigeria’s ports, crewing agencies, maritime law firms, logistics companies and shipping operations may soon find their own wellbeing under scrutiny.
The Mission to Seafarers has announced the launch of its Shorebased Happiness Index (ShoreHI) — a new welfare measurement tool designed to capture the wellbeing and job satisfaction of maritime professionals working on land, for the very first time.
The ShoreHI mirrors the structure and methodology of the internationally recognised Seafarers Happiness Index (SHI) and will consist of a 10-question, 1-to-10-scale survey targeting those employed ashore in maritime roles — including ship management, port operations, maritime law, insurance, logistics, finance, and technology.
The move has particular relevance for Nigeria’s maritime sector, where tens of thousands of shore-based professionals — from NPA staff and freight forwarders at Apapa and Tin Can Island to NIMASA regulators and shipping agents — work under significant pressure with little formal measurement of their workplace welfare.
The key objectives of the ShoreHI are to generate industry-wide insights that enable data-driven improvements in workplace culture, retention, and performance, and to provide robust comparative data to support better welfare policies.
Steven Jones, who founded both indices, explained the rationale behind the expansion. “We have spent years measuring happiness at sea,” he said. “Now it is time to measure the wellbeing of the people ashore whose decisions shape life onboard. If we want happier, safer, and more supported seafarers, we need to understand the pressures and realities on both sides of the ship-shore divide.”
Ben Bailey, Director of Programme at the Mission to Seafarers, said the new tool completes a picture that the SHI alone could not provide. “The Seafarers Happiness Index has given us a clear view of life at sea. What it also shows is that many of those pressures originate ashore. ShoreHI is the next step — connecting both sides of the sector so we can move from anecdote to evidence, and target the changes that will have the greatest impact on wellbeing across the maritime workforce.”
The survey will be conducted anonymously and built on the existing Seafarers Happiness Index infrastructure, keeping additional resource requirements to a minimum. Over time, ShoreHI results will be aggregated alongside seafarer findings to build the most complete picture yet of how work and organisational culture interact across global maritime operations.
The announcement comes at a time when Nigeria’s maritime workforce is under considerable strain. Port congestion, policy uncertainty, low welfare standards for terminal workers, and the mental health burden on shipping professionals have all been subjects of growing concern — issues that Waterways News has reported on extensively.
The SHI, which is now in its 10th year, is run quarterly by the Mission to Seafarers in collaboration with Idwal and NorthStandard, and supported by Inmarsat. Its most recent edition recorded a modest rise in seafarer happiness to 6.98 out of 10, up from 6.91 in Q4 2024 — though concerns remain around aging vessels, maintenance pressures, and shore leave restrictions.
With the ShoreHI now joining the suite, maritime professionals on both sides of the gangway — including those working across Nigeria’s major ports and waterways — will for the first time have a formal channel through which their wellbeing can be tracked, compared, and acted upon.
NIGERIA WATCH
How this story connects to Nigeria’s maritime sector
The launch of the Shorebased Happiness Index arrives at a defining moment for Nigeria’s maritime industry — one in which the human cost of keeping Africa’s busiest port economy running is rarely counted, let alone measured.
Nigeria’s shore-based maritime workforce is vast and varied. It spans the dock workers and terminal operators at the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)-administered facilities in Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt; the freight forwarders and clearing agents regulated by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS); the seafarer certification and vessel inspection teams at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); the waterway transport operators and inland port personnel under the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA); and thousands more employed across crewing agencies, maritime law firms, logistics companies, and ship chandlers spread across the Niger Delta and Lagos corridor.
Despite the scale and strategic importance of this workforce — one that underpins Nigeria’s import-export lifeline and a significant share of its non-oil foreign exchange earnings — there is currently no formal, structured mechanism for tracking the welfare and job satisfaction of these professionals. Their grievances, burnout levels, workplace pressures, and morale are largely invisible to policymakers.
This is where the ShoreHI could change the conversation. Should Nigerian shore-based maritime workers participate in the index in meaningful numbers, the resulting data could provide the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy — led by Minister Adegboyega Oyetola — with an independent, evidence-based picture of workforce wellbeing across the sector. It would complement the Ministry’s ongoing reform agenda and give added weight to calls for improved welfare conditions, better pay structures, and more humane working environments at Nigeria’s ports.
For NIMASA, whose mandate includes the welfare and certification of Nigerian seafarers and maritime labour compliance, the ShoreHI represents an opportunity to benchmark Nigeria’s shore-based workforce against global standards — and to identify systemic gaps that internal reporting alone may not capture. The agency has in recent years expanded its focus on seafarer welfare, but the wellbeing of the shore-based professionals who support seafarers has remained a blind spot.
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), which advocates for the interests of cargo owners and monitors port service quality, would also find value in ShoreHI data. A demotivated or poorly supported port workforce — from berth allocation officers to terminal gate staff — directly affects cargo dwell time, port efficiency, and ultimately the cost of doing business at Nigerian ports.
For organised maritime labour, including the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and the National Union of Seafarers of Nigeria (NUSN), the ShoreHI offers a rare external validation tool — one that could strengthen their advocacy with port employers and government regulators by replacing anecdote with hard data.
Nigeria’s participation in the ShoreHI is not automatic. It requires deliberate engagement — from NIMASA and the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy encouraging participation, to industry associations like the Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA), the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), and the Shipping Companies of Nigeria (SHIPPERS-COMP) circulating the survey among their members. The more Nigerian voices that feed into the index, the more relevant and actionable its findings will be for our sector.
At a time when Nigeria is positioning itself as the maritime hub of West and Central Africa, understanding whether the people who run that hub are fulfilled, supported, and fairly treated is not a soft question. It is a strategic one.
Waterways News will continue to monitor Nigeria’s engagement with the Shorebased Happiness Index and report on any findings with implications for domestic maritime policy and workforce welfare.
Editor's Choice
WORKERS’ DAY SPECIAL REPORT: Between the Tide and the Struggle — The State of Nigeria’s Maritime Workers in 2026
WORKERS’ DAY SPECIAL REPORT: Between the Tide and the Struggle — The State of Nigeria’s Maritime Workers in 2026
A Waterways News Special Investigation | May 1, 2026
By Larry Osaweren | Waterways News
As the world marks International Workers’ Day, the men and women who keep Nigeria’s ports, terminals, and waterways moving remain among the most underserved labour forces on the continent. From the creeks of the Niger Delta to the crowded jetties of Apapa, their stories are ones of grit against institutional neglect, unpaid wages, and structural abandonment — set in sharp relief against a global maritime labour framework that Nigeria has ratified but struggles to enforce.
The Wage Gap That Indicts a System
Begin with the most basic measure of worker dignity: pay.
In April 2025, the International Labour Organization concluded minimum wage negotiations in Geneva, setting the global maritime floor at USD $690 per month for an able seafarer — effective January 2026, rising to $704 in 2027 and $715 in 2028. That figure, the product of decades of collective bargaining between the International Chamber of Shipping and the International Transport Workers’ Federation, represents the baseline below which no seafarer anywhere in the world should legally fall.
Nigerian seafarers fall below it routinely.
Testimonies gathered by industry investigators indicate that Nigerian seafarers earn five to seven times less than their international counterparts in comparable roles. One seafarer, speaking anonymously, confirmed that the minimum wage document — a tripartite instrument midwifed by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the National Joint Industrial Council of the Federal Ministry of Labour — is routinely disregarded, with shipping companies paying figures well below what is stipulated. Calls for Nigerian seafarers to be paid in US dollars, in line with the global nature of the profession, have gone largely unanswered.
On land, Nigeria’s national minimum wage stands at ₦70,000 per month — roughly USD $45 — signed into law by President Bola Tinubu in July 2024. The average monthly salary across all sectors hovers around ₦339,000 (approximately $220). Against this already-depressed baseline, maritime workers on the waterways — canoe pilots, boat skippers, and jetty workers who move millions of Nigerians daily — frequently earn below even these modest benchmarks.
The Stranded Cadet Crisis
Nigeria’s maritime workforce challenge is not simply about low wages. At its core, it is a crisis of structural abandonment — one that wastes billions of naira in training investments and condemns thousands of qualified young Nigerians to idleness.
Across the country’s maritime training institutions — from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) in Oron to private offshore training centres — hundreds of cadets graduate every year. They emerge certified, ambitious, and trapped. The bottleneck is sea-time: to become a licensed international seafarer, a cadet must complete mandatory onboard training. That requires vessels. And Nigeria, bluntly, lacks a meaningful national fleet.
The Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), established under the Cabotage Act of 2003 to help indigenous shipowners acquire vessels, sat largely un-operationalised for over two decades despite billions of naira in accumulated contributions — a damning verdict on successive administrations. NIMASA under Director-General Dr. Dayo Mobereola has taken visible steps to revive the CVFF, launching an application portal in January 2025, with meaningful disbursements to indigenous operators anticipated through 2026.
But the human cost of the delay is already tallied: over 4,000 trained Nigerian seafarers — deckhands, officers, cadets, and marine engineers — are currently adrift in the job market, qualified but largely idle. Meanwhile, industry insiders report that over 80 per cent of vessels flying the Nigerian flag or trading in Nigerian waters no longer carry Nigerian cadets. The roles are going to foreign nationals while Nigerian-trained talent withers on the vine.
The comparison is instructive. The Philippines exports over 400,000 seafarers globally and earns an estimated $6 to $7 billion yearly in remittances. Nigeria’s seafarers, with the country’s enormous coastline, river systems, and maritime heritage, represent one of the nation’s most squandered economic assets.
The Certificate Recognition Problem
A further dimension of the crisis is the global non-recognition of Nigerian maritime credentials. Certificates of Competency (CoC) issued by NIMASA are not widely accepted aboard international vessels, dramatically curtailing the professional reach of Nigerian seafarers compared to peers from India, Greece, or the Philippines.
Captain (Dr.) Abdulrasheed Onakoya, a researcher and member of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners, has publicly highlighted that Nigeria’s maritime training institutions suffer from inadequate funding, outdated equipment, and limited access to sea-time — a combination that makes it difficult to meet standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Shipowners, aware of this gap, use it as justification to underpay or refuse to employ Nigerian seafarers altogether.
NIMASA has responded: the agency has dispatched over 235 cadets to premier institutions in India and Greece, and has integrated technology for verifying Certificates of Competency. These are the right moves. But they must be accelerated and matched with domestic sea-time opportunities at home.
MWUN: Progress, but Not Enough
The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has recorded genuine milestones. Under President-General Comrade Francis Bunu, the union secured a landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement with shipping companies in August 2024 — the first meaningful minimum conditions framework in twenty years of failed negotiations with the Shipping Agencies, Clearing and Forwarding Employers Association. The agreement, brokered with the involvement of NIMASA and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, established minimum standards covering wages, working hours, and health and safety.
In July 2025, MWUN also concluded a peace accord with Melsmore Marine Nigeria Limited following a protracted dispute over workers’ welfare and pension remittances, with Bunu declaring a “new dawn for Nigerian seafarers” and announcing full unionisation of Melsmore’s workforce.
These are genuine victories. But they remain islands of progress in a sea of structural deficit. Union penetration remains incomplete. Pension remittances by shipping companies to workers’ retirement savings accounts continue to be a site of dispute. And the broader Nigerian labour landscape — with over 75 million informal sector workers excluded from the Contributory Pension Scheme — means maritime workers outside the formal MWUN structure are particularly exposed.
The Inland Waterways: Nigeria’s Forgotten Workforce
Beyond the seafarers, there is a second maritime labour force even more invisible to policy: the operators of Nigeria’s inland waterways — the boat skippers, canoe pilots, and jetty workers who carry millions of Nigerians across rivers, creeks, and lagoons every day.
Nigeria’s approximately 10,000 kilometres of navigable waterways connect 28 of its 36 states and link to five neighbouring countries. This is an extraordinary geographic asset — one that remains criminally underutilised, and whose workers remain almost entirely unprotected.
The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has intensified training efforts, completing a three-day Boat Navigation and Safety Training for 75 operators from Lagos, Ogun, and Ondo states in December 2025, and distributing 42,000 life jackets across 12 riverine states. These are commendable steps. But NIWA remains overwhelmingly dependent on government grants and generates barely 20 per cent of its required funding — a structural fragility that constrains both infrastructure development and worker welfare.
Boat operators themselves have historically borne multiple, overlapping levies from competing agencies — a burden so contentious it required a Supreme Court judgment in January 2024 to settle the jurisdictional boundary between NIWA and the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA).
Nigeria Watch: What Must Change
This Workers’ Day, Nigerian maritime labour stands at a crossroads. The legal architecture exists — Nigeria has ratified the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006 — but enforcement remains uneven and frequently dependent on the goodwill of individual shipping companies rather than institutional compulsion.
The path forward is clear, even if the political will to walk it is not yet assured. NIMASA must convert CVFF momentum into actual vessel acquisitions that create the sea-time berths stranded cadets desperately need. Training reform must be matched by domestic opportunity. MWUN must extend its reach to the informal and inland waterway operators who remain outside its protection. And the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy must treat maritime labour not as a residual concern, but as a strategic pillar of the blue economy agenda it has championed.
Nigeria’s waterway workers have kept the nation moving — through floods, fuel crises, and fiscal austerity. On this Workers’ Day, the question is not whether they deserve better. It is whether the institutions charged with their welfare will finally deliver it.
Waterways News | waterwaysnews.ng
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