Blue Economy
NMLA Raises Alarm: National Single Window Risks Collapse Without Legal Anchor
NMLA Raises Alarm: National Single Window Risks Collapse Without Legal Anchor
Nigeria’s ambitious National Single Window trade facilitation project is hurtling toward a legal cliff edge — and maritime lawyers are sounding the alarm.
By Emetena Ikuku | Waterways News Reporter | Lagos | May 27, 2026
The Nigerian Maritime Law Association (NMLA) has issued a stark warning that the initiative, designed to consolidate cargo clearance procedures across all government agencies into a single digital portal, could unravel without an urgent statutory framework to back it up. The association is calling on the National Assembly to act without delay, either by enacting a standalone National Single Window Act or by amending existing legislation such as the Business Facilitation Act to provide the project with explicit legal grounding.
The warning was delivered at the NMLA’s fourth maritime industry breakfast meeting in Lagos, where association President Mike Igbokwe, SAN, laid out the legal risks in unsparing terms.
6th from left, Director National Single Window, Mr Tola Fakolade, the President Nigeria Maritime Law Association, Mr Mike Igbokwe (SAN) and other executive members during the 4th breakfast Meeting held in Lagos on Friday last week
“We believe it is better to have legislation in place before implementation,” Igbokwe told attendees. “But what we are seeing now is that implementation has started without an Act of the National Assembly enacted to drive it.”
That sequence — action before authority — is precisely what worries the legal community. Without a clear enabling law, the Single Window system has no defined mandate, no designated coordinating agency and no enforceable operational framework. In practical terms, that creates fertile ground for legal disputes, agency turf wars and the kind of administrative confusion that has historically plagued port reform efforts in Nigeria.
A Trade Haemorrhage Nigeria Cannot Afford
The stakes could hardly be higher. Nigeria’s ports have long been among the most expensive and time-consuming in sub-Saharan Africa, a problem driven in large part by the proliferation of agencies that importers and exporters must navigate independently before their cargo can move.
Igbokwe described the current situation bluntly: traders are forced to shuttle between multiple government bodies — each with its own processes, fees and timelines — at every stage of the clearance cycle. The result is inflated costs, longer dwell times and a competitive disadvantage that is pushing cargo away from Nigerian ports entirely.
“We have overlapping functions, multiple agencies doing different things. That wastes time, effort and money,” he said. “The idea is to harmonise everything through one single window so that all agencies are connected and people do not have to move from one agency to another for different stages of cargo clearance.”
The economic fallout is already visible. Igbokwe warned that importers are increasingly rerouting consignments meant for Lagos and other Nigerian gateways to ports in neighbouring countries, where clearance processes are simpler and more predictable. “The nation is bleeding,” he said. “Because of the high cost of imported goods arising from the multiplicity of procedures and costs, many goods meant for Nigerian ports are going to neighbouring ports. We are losing revenue.”
A Window Without a Frame
The National Single Window concept is not new to Nigeria — it has been discussed, studied and piloted in various forms for years. But the NMLA’s concern is that the latest iteration is being pushed forward without the institutional architecture needed to sustain it.
Tola Fakolade, Director of the National Single Window Project, reinforced that point at the breakfast meeting, stressing that regulatory reform is essential not just for the project’s efficiency but for its long-term survival and insulation from political interference.
That concern is well-founded. Nigerian port reforms have a long history of stalling or reversing when the political winds shift or when powerful agency interests reassert themselves. A statutory foundation would make the Single Window harder to dismantle, strip of funding or quietly shelved when priorities change.
Igbokwe acknowledged that the legislative calendar presents its own challenges — elections, political distractions and competing priorities routinely slow the passage of bills. But he argued that these obstacles are not insurmountable where executive support and political will exist.
What Needs to Happen
The NMLA’s position is clear: the National Assembly must pass either a dedicated Single Window Act or amend existing law before the project advances further. The legislation, the association argues, should clearly define which agency holds coordinating authority, establish enforceable data-sharing obligations across all government entities operating at the ports, set out dispute resolution mechanisms and create accountability structures.
For a platform like Waterways News, whose reporting has consistently tracked the structural bottlenecks strangling Nigeria’s maritime trade corridors, the NMLA’s intervention is timely. Nigeria cannot transform its port sector through technology alone. Systems require mandates, and mandates require law. Until the National Assembly acts, the National Single Window remains a promising architecture built on a foundation of sand.
NIGERIA WATCH Tracking the story across government ministries, departments and agencies
This story touches the mandate of the following ministries, departments and agencies. Waterways News will be monitoring their response.
Federal Ministry of Marine & Blue Economy As the supervising ministry for Nigeria’s ports and maritime trade infrastructure, the ministry bears direct responsibility for championing the legislative push for a Single Window Act. It should be driving executive support for the bill and coordinating inter-agency buy-in. Status: No public position on legislation yet declared.
Federal Ministry of Finance / Presidential Fiscal Policy & Tax Reform Committee Trade facilitation sits at the heart of Nigeria’s revenue and fiscal reform agenda. The absence of a legal framework for the Single Window directly undermines targets around import duty collection efficiency and port revenue optimisation. Status: Monitoring.
Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) As the principal port management body, NPA is a key agency whose functions must be integrated into any functional Single Window system. Overlapping mandates between NPA and other port agencies are among the core problems the initiative is designed to solve. Status: Yet to make a public commitment to the legislative process.
Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Customs is arguably the agency with the most to gain — and the most to lose — from a unified clearance system. A Single Window would reshape how Customs interfaces with importers, agents and fellow agencies. Legislative clarity is essential to define its role within the new architecture. Status: Monitoring.
Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) NIMASA’s regulatory functions overlap with several agencies involved in cargo clearance and port operations. Its cooperation will be critical to eliminating duplicated processes under the Single Window. Status: No formal statement on the legislative question.
National Assembly — Senate Committee on Marine Transport / House Committee on Ports & Harbours The ball is ultimately in the legislature’s court. The NMLA has called for either a standalone National Single Window Act or targeted amendments to the Business Facilitation Act. Both chambers must move with urgency. Status: No bill listed on either chamber’s active legislative agenda as of publication.
Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) PEBEC was established specifically to reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks to doing business in Nigeria. The absence of a legal framework for the Single Window — a flagship ease-of-doing-business reform — falls squarely within its mandate. Status: Monitoring.
WaterwaysNews.ng | Nigeria’s Leading Maritime News Platform | Nigeria Watch is a Waterways News accountability segment that tracks how relevant government institutions respond to issues raised in our reporting.
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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