Blue Economy
NSC Takes Port Regulatory Mandate to National Stage as Perm Sec Mahmood Lauds Reform Drive
NSC Takes Port Regulatory Mandate to National Stage as Perm Sec Mahmood Lauds Reform Drive
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News Correspondent
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has used the 2026 International Civil Service Conference in Abuja to project its port economic regulation mandate to a broader public service audience, reinforcing the Council’s positioning as a frontline reform institution within Nigeria’s maritime sector.
NSC at the Exhibition Stand
The conference, held under the theme “Reforms, Resilience and Results,” drew key federal public service stakeholders to assess institutional performance and chart a path for deepening service delivery. The NSC mounted an exhibition stand showcasing its activities as Nigeria’s designated Port Economic Regulator — displaying programmes around stakeholder sensitisation, fair trade facilitation, and operational efficiency across the nation’s port system.
The platform offered the Council a rare opportunity to present its regulatory work to an audience beyond the port industry, situating maritime governance within the wider national public sector reform conversation.
Mahmood Endorses NSC’s Engagement Approach
Visiting the Council’s stand, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, Fatima Sugra Mahmood, expressed commendation for the NSC’s sustained engagement with industry stakeholders and the clarity with which the Council articulated its regulatory functions during the exhibition.
Her remarks signal continued ministerial support for the NSC at a time when the Council’s enforcement role — particularly around port tariff disputes, cargo handling charges, and shipper protection — remains under active scrutiny by trade associations and terminal operators alike.
Nigeria Watch
The NSC’s appearance at a cross-sectoral civil service event carries significance beyond optics. The Council has faced persistent questions from shippers and freight forwarders about the effectiveness of its regulatory interventions — particularly on demurrage, terminal charges, and shipper redress mechanisms.
Taking the regulatory story to a national governance forum is a calculated move: it builds institutional visibility, reinforces the NSC’s legitimacy as a statutory economic regulator, and signals to the Federal Ministry that the Council is aligned with the Tinubu administration’s broader public sector reform agenda.
For maritime industry observers, the more pressing question remains whether the NSC’s exhibiting of its mandate will translate into measurable outcomes at the ports — where cargo costs, regulatory ambiguity, and stakeholder mistrust continue to burden Nigerian shippers.
NIMASA, Liberia Forge Closer Maritime Ties, Eye Sea-Time Training for African Youths
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News Correspondent
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has signalled renewed determination to deepen inter-African maritime cooperation, following a high-level consultative visit by the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Liberia in Lagos, Mr. Dapo Akinosun, SAN, to the Agency’s Lagos headquarters.
Receiving the envoy, NIMASA Director General Dr. Dayo Mobereola described the engagement as a reflection of the enduring bilateral maritime relationship between Nigeria and Liberia, and called for accelerated continent-wide collaboration to unlock Africa’s vast maritime potential.
Capacity, Youth and the Blue Economy
Dr. Mobereola placed particular emphasis on the urgent need to expand sea-time training and practical maritime exposure for African youth, arguing that structured capacity development programmes could position Nigerian and other African seafarers to compete credibly in the global maritime labour market.
“The time has come for African nations to upscale maritime collaboration. The partnership between Nigeria and Liberia will help us build capacity, strengthen regional cooperation, and create opportunities for African youths within the global maritime industry,” the NIMASA DG stated.
He added that maritime capacity must be built beyond national borders, noting that hands-on sea-time experience remains the critical bridge between classroom training and international competitiveness.
IMO Seat and Diplomatic Goodwill
Dr. Mobereola also used the occasion to acknowledge Liberia’s support for Nigeria’s successful campaign for a Category C seat at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), describing the backing as a demonstration of the productive diplomatic and technical relationship both countries have sustained over the years.
Liberia’s Position
Consul Akinosun, for his part, said the visit was designed to reinforce bilateral maritime ties and explore concrete pathways for expanded cooperation across maritime administration, port safety, and trade facilitation. He commended NIMASA’s management for recent reform efforts and pledged Liberia’s readiness for deeper engagement.
“Nigeria has demonstrated genuine commitment to maritime partnership and regional growth. Liberia looks forward to deeper collaboration with NIMASA in maritime administration, safety, capacity development, and trade promotion for the advancement of Africa’s Blue Economy,” Akinosun said.
Also present at the meeting were NIMASA Executive Director, Maritime Labour and Cabotage Service, Mr. Jibril Abba; Director of Reforms Coordination and Strategic Management/Blue Economy Unit, Mrs. Nneka Obianyor; and Mr. Kehinde Ogundimu, Head of the Media Department at the Liberian Consulate in Lagos.
Nigeria Watch: Why This Bilateral Engagement Matters Beyond the Handshake
Diplomatic courtesy visits between maritime regulators and foreign consuls are often dismissed as ceremonial. The NIMASA-Liberia engagement this week, however, carries layered significance that warrants closer reading — particularly for Nigerian shipping stakeholders tracking the Agency’s strategic direction under Dr. Mobereola.
The IMO Dimension
Nigeria’s Category C seat at the International Maritime Organization is not merely a prestige acquisition. It translates into real influence over the rule-setting architecture that governs flag state responsibilities, port state control regimes, and the international conventions under which Nigerian-flagged vessels trade and Nigerian ports are assessed. Liberia’s support for Nigeria’s IMO bid was not incidental — Liberia is one of the world’s largest open registries, operating a flag state of enormous commercial weight through its Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry (LISCR). When a registry of that scale backs Nigeria’s multilateral ambitions, it signals mutual interest in shaping how African maritime governance is represented at the global table. Nigeria would do well to translate that goodwill into substantive co-sponsorship of positions at IMO sessions, particularly on issues affecting Gulf of Guinea security, seafarer certification equivalences, and the decarbonisation transition costs borne disproportionately by developing maritime states.
The Seafarer Supply Chain Gap
Dr. Mobereola’s emphasis on sea-time training is a pointed acknowledgement of one of the most persistent structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s maritime sector. Nigeria produces maritime academy graduates at a respectable rate across institutions such as the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) and the various state maritime schools. The bottleneck, long identified by industry insiders, lies not in classroom supply but in the availability of berths — approved vessel positions on internationally recognised ships where cadets can accumulate the documented sea service hours required for STCW certification. Liberia’s registry connections, if properly leveraged, could open pathways for Nigerian cadets to secure sea-time placements on vessels under the Liberian flag, many of which are operated by major international shipowners. This is not a novel idea, but it has never been formalised into a bilateral protocol. The Mobereola-Akinosun meeting presents an opportunity to move that conversation from aspiration to implementation.
Cabotage and Regional Trade Connectivity
Beyond the bilateral, NIMASA’s renewed push for African maritime integration fits within a broader strategic logic that Nigerian policymakers have long articulated but inconsistently executed. The Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), still largely undisbursed, was designed in part to build indigenous fleet capacity that could anchor Nigeria as a regional shipping hub. A more integrated West African maritime space — with harmonised port state control inspections, aligned seafarer certification regimes, and cooperative vessel traffic management — would increase the commercial viability of Nigerian-flagged coastal traders operating routes to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Until that regulatory architecture exists, the economics of regional cabotage will remain fragile. Engagements like this week’s Liberia visit are, at minimum, the diplomatic groundwork on which that architecture must eventually be built.
Blue Economy
AfCFTA Trade Gap Widens: Nigeria Issues Just 37 Certificates of Origin as South Africa Hits 4,000
AfCFTA Trade Gap Widens: Nigeria Issues Just 37 Certificates of Origin as South Africa Hits 4,000
Shipping and export communities warned as Nigeria lags far behind peers in continental trade integration
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News Correspondent
Nigeria’s participation in intra-African trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is in serious jeopardy, with fresh data revealing that Africa’s largest economy has issued a mere 37 Certificates of Origin under the framework — compared to over 4,000 by South Africa alone.
The figures, confirmed by the Nigeria Customs Service and corroborated by trade monitoring sources, expose a yawning implementation gap that maritime operators, port-sector stakeholders, and exporters say cannot be explained away by Nigeria’s complex trade environment alone.
What the Numbers Say
Approximately 8,500 Certificates of Origin have been issued continent-wide under AfCFTA to date. South Africa accounts for nearly half of that figure, with Egypt, Kenya, and Ghana also recording significantly higher utilisation rates. Nigeria — the continent’s biggest economy by GDP and its most populous nation — accounts for less than half of one per cent of the total.
The Certificate of Origin is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the document that certifies the local content of exported goods and qualifies those goods for preferential tariff treatment within the AfCFTA single market, a continental trading bloc currently valued at over $3 trillion. Without it, Nigerian exporters cannot access the duty advantages the agreement was designed to deliver.
A Port and Shipping Sector Problem
For Nigeria’s maritime community, the implications are direct. Vessels departing Nigerian ports with cargo bound for other African markets — whether dry goods, processed commodities, or refined petroleum products including those increasingly evacuated from the Dangote Refinery — depend on proper documentation to benefit from AfCFTA’s tariff preferences at destination ports.
Where that documentation is absent or delayed, cargo can face higher import duties on arrival in partner states, undermining the competitiveness of Nigerian-origin exports and the commercial case for expanding coastal and short-sea shipping on the continent.
The disparity also has implications for Nigeria’s ambitions under the cabotage regime. Nigerian shipowners seeking to build business around intra-African cargo flows need a robust export pipeline — one that can only be sustained if Nigerian goods are competitive in regional markets. AfCFTA is supposed to be the engine of that competitiveness. The data suggests the engine has barely turned over.
Systemic Failures Identified
Industry stakeholders who spoke on the matter described the situation as an implementation failure rather than a structural flaw in the AfCFTA framework itself. They identified the core problems as bureaucratic bottlenecks, limited automation of certification processes, poor sensitisation of exporters, and weak inter-agency coordination among the bodies responsible for AfCFTA execution in Nigeria — principally the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, the Nigeria Customs Service, and the AfCFTA coordinating office.
While countries like South Africa have rolled out digital platforms that allow exporters to obtain Certificates of Origin with relative speed and transparency, Nigeria’s process reportedly remains burdened by manual procedures, institutional delays, and a lack of awareness among the exporter community about how to use the framework at all.
High production costs, port congestion at Apapa and Tin Can Island, inadequate logistics infrastructure, and overlapping regulatory mandates further compound the problem — raising the cost of export compliance to a point where many small and medium-scale producers simply do not attempt it.
Nigeria Watch: The Competitive Risk
The AfCFTA data lands at a particularly sensitive moment for Nigerian maritime trade. With the Strait of Hormuz under pressure and global shipping routes in flux, the case for deepening Nigeria’s regional trade relationships within Africa has never been stronger. Yet the Certificate of Origin figures suggest that while other African economies are moving decisively to consolidate their positions in the continental market, Nigeria’s institutional apparatus is failing to keep pace.
South Africa’s 4,000-plus certificates do not represent a trade miracle — they represent a government that took AfCFTA implementation seriously, invested in digital certification infrastructure, and ran consistent outreach to its exporter community. Nigeria has the productive capacity to match and exceed that performance. What it demonstrably lacks, at this point, is the institutional will and execution coherence to unlock it.
Stakeholders are calling on the Federal Government to immediately overhaul the certification process through full digitalisation, enhanced inter-agency coordination, and a targeted sensitisation campaign reaching exporters through ports, industry associations, and chambers of commerce. Time, they warn, is not on Nigeria’s side. The longer the gap persists, the deeper the competitive ground lost to better-organised economies in the continent’s emerging single market.
Nigerian Navy Commissions Jetty Shelter for Bayelsa Riverine Community
By Ighotota Onaibre | Waterways News Correspondent
The Nigerian Navy’s Forward Operating Base (FOB) FORMOSO, stationed in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, has commissioned a jetty waiting room for the people of Liama community — one of three host communities supporting the base, alongside Egweama and Beletieama.
The commissioning, which took place on Friday, fulfilled a pledge made by the base’s Commanding Officer, Captain Sunday Haruna, when he assumed command. The project was delivered as part of activities marking the Nigerian Navy’s 70th anniversary.
Speaking at the handover ceremony, Captain Haruna explained that the facility, though modest in size, carries significant value for a riverine community where water transport is a way of life. He noted that during the rainy season, residents waiting for boats at the jetty are routinely exposed to the elements — a situation the shelter is designed to remedy.
“Today, we have been able to achieve it. We are officially handing it over to the host community,” he declared.
Haruna urged community members to appreciate the impact of the project beyond its physical size, reaffirming the Navy’s commitment to remaining a reliable partner to riverside communities within its area of operations.
He described the gesture as part of the Navy’s broader corporate social responsibility drive, stressing that communities living alongside military installations must feel the tangible benefit of that proximity.
“We know we cannot do much, but this waiting room is important for the community while waiting for a boat to convey them. We look at it as helping to build mutual trust between us and the community,” he said, adding that Liama and its neighbours have become integral to the base’s operations.
Community leader Chief Monday Otuka received the facility on behalf of residents, commending the Navy for the initiative and pledging that the structure would be well maintained.
The commissioning adds to a series of civic engagements the Navy has undertaken across its host communities in the Niger Delta as part of its 70th anniversary outreach — a deliberate effort, according to Haruna, to ensure that no community in the base’s catchment area is left behind.
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