Blue Economy
The King of the Waterfront: Why Oba Oniru’s Presence at WISTA’S Lagos Conference is More Than a Royal Courtesy Call
THE KING OF THE WATERFRONT: WHY OBA ONIRU’S PRESENCE AT WISTA’S LAGOS CONFERENCE IS MORE THAN A ROYAL COURTESY CALL
When Africa’s premier women-in-maritime conference convenes on Victoria Island on June 25, the monarch whose ancestors owned the land will be in the room — and that changes the conversation
By Oghenewoke Osaweren | Waterways News
There is a detail buried beneath the diplomatic language of conference announcements that, once seen, cannot be unseen.
The 8th WISTA Africa Regional Conference is scheduled for June 25 and 26, 2026, at the prestigious Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. The Oniru of Iruland, Oba Abdulwasiu Omogbolahan Lawal, has confirmed his attendance and royal backing for the event. And in that confirmation lies a story of extraordinary circularity — because a substantial portion of Victoria Island was formerly under the control of the Oniru chieftaincy family of Lagos. In 1948, the Lagos Executive Development Board paid 250,000 pounds in compensation for the land acquired from the Oniru family, with an additional 150,000 pounds paid for the inhabitants and shrines destroyed.
The monarch whose forebears were displaced from the very ground on which Eko Hotels stands — who now reigns over the kingdom of Iru, bounded on all sides by water — is walking into Africa’s foremost gathering of women maritime professionals on ancestral waterfront soil. His is not a ceremonial endorsement. It is a homecoming of historical weight.
The Conference: What WISTA Is Bringing to Lagos
The 8th WISTA Africa Regional Conference, organised under the umbrella of WISTA International, will bring together an influential gathering of maritime leaders, policymakers, regulators, investors, energy experts, legal practitioners, logistics professionals, and business executives from across Africa and around the world for two days of strategic dialogue, networking, and collaboration.
The conference comes at a pivotal time for Africa’s maritime and blue economy sectors, as stakeholders navigate emerging global trends surrounding energy transition, sustainability, digital transformation, trade competitiveness, taxation, and inclusive economic development.
For WISTA Nigeria, the stakes are personal as much as professional. The hosting carries historic significance as the association celebrates thirty-two years of impact and leadership, having been established as the first National WISTA Association in Africa. Under President Dr. Odunayo Ani — who also serves as Director of Finance at NIMASA — WISTA Nigeria has reaffirmed its position as a leading voice for women in maritime, anchored on strong leadership, accountability, and a clear strategic vision for the future.
Conference sessions will focus on a broad range of critical themes including Africa’s Blue Economy, Energy Transition and Sustainability, Maritime Trade and Investment Opportunities, Taxation, Innovation and Digital Transformation, Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion, and Shipping, Logistics and Supply Chain Resilience. Participation is expected from several countries across Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas.
Confirmed keynote speakers include prominent figures drawing the industry’s attention. Dr. Dakuku Peterside — management turnaround expert, former NIMASA Director-General, and one of the continent’s foremost maritime thought leaders — has been confirmed as a keynote speaker, marking his first keynote appearance at a maritime event on Nigerian soil in five years.
The King and His Waters
To understand why Oba Oniru’s attendance matters to the maritime community specifically, one must understand the geography of Iruland — not as it appears on modern Lagos maps, but as it was constituted long before colonial reorganisation.
The Iru-Victoria Island Local Government is described by its people as the “Foreshore” council because of the various waters surrounding it. To the south, the Atlantic Ocean. To the north, Lagos Lagoon and the Five Cowrie Creek. To the south-east are the Kuramo and Okunde waters. To the west, the Macgregor Canal. The kingdom of Iruland is, by its very geography, a maritime kingdom. It is enclosed by water. It has always been defined by water.
Victoria Island was initially surrounded completely by water — the Atlantic Ocean to the south, Five Cowrie Creek to the north, Lagos Lagoon to the west, and swamps to the east. The Eko Hotels and Suites, where the WISTA conference will be hosted, sits within this historically waterbound terrain.
Since ascending the throne in 2020, Oba Abdulwasiu Omogbolahan Lawal has governed with an unusually modern understanding of the intersection between royal authority, coastal geography, and economic development. He inaugurated the Oniru Business and Culture Day — a structured engagement platform anchored on the philosophy of “Peace Through Partnership,” with a deliberate focus on coordinating growth, structuring dialogue and ensuring shared prosperity. The Lagos State Governor pledged commitment to full implementation of the Victoria Island and Iruland Master Plan, with particular emphasis on the waterfront and commercial activities along the waterways.
A monarch who has made waterfront economic activation a cornerstone of his reign lending his royal authority to Africa’s most consequential maritime conference for women professionals is not a protocol exercise. It is a policy statement.
Why Traditional Authority Still Matters in Maritime Spaces
Nigeria’s maritime governance discourse tends to be dominated by federal agencies, port authorities, and shipping companies. The role of traditional institutions in shaping the social and cultural environment within which maritime commerce operates is persistently undervalued.
Yet the evidence from Lagos suggests that royal endorsement and community legitimacy remain powerful accelerants for economic activity — particularly in coastal and waterfront zones where customary land relationships, community security dynamics, and cultural hospitality shape the environment in which businesses operate and conferences convene.
The Commander of Nigerian Navy Ship Beecroft paid a courtesy visit to the Oba of Lagos earlier this year, ahead of the Nigerian Navy’s 70th Anniversary, specifically to seek royal support and formal invitation for the monarch’s participation — because sustained collaboration between the Navy and traditional institutions, especially in coastal communities, plays a critical role in economic development and security.
The Navy understands what conference organisers are beginning to recognise: in Nigeria’s coastal cities, royal authority is not decorative. It is infrastructural.
Oba Oniru’s backing for WISTA’s regional conference carries an implicit message to investors, foreign delegates, and African governments considering Lagos as a maritime hub: the waterfront kingdom’s traditional authority stands behind this gathering. That is not a small thing in a region where trust, community relationships, and cultural legitimacy often determine whether international business stays or leaves.
WISTA at 32: Africa’s First, Still Leading
The WISTA Africa Conference traditionally welcomes approximately 150 local and international delegates representing maritime authorities, port authorities, shippers, agents, business owners, maritime lawyers, maritime media, government authorities and other leaders in the sector.
But this eighth edition carries an ambition that transcends delegate numbers. This edition of the WISTA Africa Conference is intentionally structured to move beyond conversations — providing a platform to learn from best practices, expand professional networks, and facilitate partnerships and business deals that deliver measurable value.
That shift — from dialogue to deals — is significant. African maritime conferences have long been criticised for generating eloquent communiqués without commercial outcomes. WISTA Nigeria’s explicit reframing of the Lagos conference as a transactions platform positions it differently.
The timing also intersects with a broader continental moment. Nigeria’s Ministry of Blue Economy has been actively exploring capital market funding models for maritime projects, and the 11th Our Ocean Conference held in Mombasa this week — the first edition on African soil — focused directly on ocean sustainability, coastal communities, and economic opportunities, attracting over 1,000 participants from around 100 countries. Lagos will be receiving Africa’s maritime investment and policy attention exactly as this continental momentum peaks.
The Waterways Dimension
For readers of Waterways.ng, the significance of this conference extends beyond its gender inclusion agenda — important as that is — into a question that our publication tracks persistently: what does Nigeria’s blue economy actually look like when examined from the water inward, rather than from the land outward?
Victoria Island, Iruland, and the Lagos waterfront represent perhaps the single most commercially concentrated stretch of maritime-adjacent real estate in West Africa. With two five-star hotels, high-class restaurants, diplomatic missions, and headquarters of banks, oil companies and other multinational firms, Iruland has become the nerve centre of business and tourism in Nigeria. Almost all of this commercial density exists because water defined this space — historically, geographically, and economically.
When Africa’s women maritime professionals gather here on June 25, they will be meeting not just in a Lagos hotel but in a kingdom built on water, endorsed by a king whose land was the waterfront, in a country that is still debating what it means to genuinely harness a blue economy rather than simply announce one.
Oba Oniru’s attendance at the WISTA conference is a reminder that maritime history in Nigeria is living, local, and royal — and that the conversations happening at Eko Hotel in twelve days’ time are rooted in a much longer and deeper relationship between this city, its people, and its waters
Waterways News covers Nigeria’s rivers, creeks, coasts, and inland waterways — the communities that live by them, the economy they carry, and the governance that shapes their future.
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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