Blue Economy
Undersea and Under Threat: How Fragile Cables Beneath the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz Hold the Digital World Hostage
Undersea and Under Threat: How Fragile Cables Beneath the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz Hold the Digital World Hostage
By Okeoghene Onoriobe
Waterways News Correspondent, Lagos
Invisible to the naked eye, imperceptible to the ships that sail above them, and almost entirely absent from mainstream security discourse — a slender web of fibre-optic cables snaking along the floors of the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz is quietly performing one of the most consequential tasks in the modern world. And in 2026, that web is under threat.
Just 17 undersea cable systems carry approximately 17 per cent of total global internet traffic, while routing nearly all of the critical data that flows between Europe and Asia. These are not peripheral infrastructure assets. They are the central nervous system of a multi-trillion-dollar digital economy — and the principal arteries feeding one of the fastest-growing technology booms the world has ever seen: the artificial intelligence revolution now reshaping the Middle East.
A Digital Gold Rush Built on Submarine Infrastructure
From the gleaming skyline of Abu Dhabi to the sprawling industrial corridors of Riyadh, the Gulf region is positioning itself as a global technology powerhouse. Microsoft has committed tens of billions of dollars to cloud and AI infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates. Amazon Web Services has opened a dedicated cloud region in Saudi Arabia. Google has established an AI hub near Dammam, targeting enterprise clients across the Arabian Gulf. These investments are not speculative ventures — they are strategic bets on a digital future that depends, fundamentally, on the uninterrupted flow of data across these underwater corridors.
Yet for all the architectural grandeur of these data centres, their connectivity to the rest of the world ultimately runs through cables no wider than a garden hose, lying exposed on the seabed beneath some of the most geopolitically volatile waters on the planet.
A Threat Landscape Both Old and New
The vulnerabilities are neither hypothetical nor new. Undersea cables have historically suffered damage from shipping anchors, trawling nets, and seismic activity. In early 2024, multiple cables in the Red Sea were severed — an incident widely linked to the escalating conflict in Yemen — causing significant disruptions to data traffic and forcing emergency rerouting through alternative routes at substantial cost to telecommunications providers. The incident was a stark warning that even the most sophisticated global digital infrastructure can be undone by instability in one critical maritime chokepoint.
In 2026, the threat calculus has grown more complex. Heightened tensions in the Strait of Hormuz — through which a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and roughly 20 per cent of global oil transits daily — now extend beyond energy to the digital domain. State and non-state actors increasingly understand that disrupting undersea cables is a low-cost, high-impact means of inflicting economic pain on adversaries without firing a single conventional shot.
Unlike a cyberattack that can be patched with software, or a trade dispute resolved at the negotiating table, a physically severed undersea cable requires months of specialised repair, involving cable-laying vessels — some of the most technically complex ships afloat — that are few in number globally and in perpetually high demand.
Stakes That Cannot Be Overstated
The consequences of a serious, prolonged disruption extend well beyond slower internet speeds. Modern banking systems, cross-border payment infrastructure, cloud computing services, and AI processing pipelines all depend on low-latency, high-bandwidth international data connectivity. A sustained outage affecting the Red Sea and Hormuz corridor would not merely inconvenience consumers — it could trigger cascading failures in financial markets, interrupt supply chain coordination systems, and compromise the cloud-based AI tools upon which governments and corporations now depend for critical decision-making.
In effect, the real theatre of 21st-century conflict may no longer be exclusively on land, at sea, or in the air. It may be 2,000 metres beneath the surface.
Nigeria Watch: What This Means for Nigerian Maritime and Digital Stakeholders
For Nigeria’s maritime sector and its growing technology economy, the vulnerability of Red Sea and Hormuz undersea cable infrastructure carries direct and material implications.
Nigeria is home to the landing points of several major international submarine cable systems — including SAT-3/WASC, MainOne, ACE, and WACS — that connect West Africa to Europe and, by extension, to Asia via transhipment through European internet exchange points. Any degradation of the Europe-Asia cable corridor elevates latency and increases bandwidth costs for Nigerian telecommunications operators and data centre providers, with downstream effects for fintech platforms, e-commerce, and digital financial services — sectors at the core of Nigeria’s growing blue economy ambitions.
From a maritime perspective, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) should take note that the same geopolitical dynamics disrupting undersea cables in the Red Sea also affect global shipping lane security — with implications for freight rates, insurance premiums, and voyage routing for Nigerian-flagged and Nigerian-bound vessels. A prolonged crisis in the Hormuz corridor would affect tanker availability and bunker fuel pricing, with knock-on effects for vessel operators calling at Apapa, Tin Can Island, and the Lekki Deep Sea Port.
The Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy would do well to incorporate undersea cable infrastructure protection into Nigeria’s broader maritime security framework — recognising that in an era of converging physical and digital threats, the distinction between a shipping lane and a data highway is increasingly academic.
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Blue Economy
Water Transport Operators Push For Recognition At The Table As FTAN Demands Tourism Policy Reforms
Water Transport Operators Push For Recognition At The Table As FTAN Demands Tourism Policy Reforms
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Nigeria’s tourism sector needs urgent policy reform, stronger collaboration and fresh investment to compete globally and water transport operators who are members of the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) want that conversation to include the boats, ferries and waterway routes that move millions of Nigerians and could move even more tourists.
That was the underlying idea raised by Comrade Babatope Fajemirokun National President of Waterfront Boat Owners and Transporters Association of Nigeria (WABOTAN) represented by Chief Raymond Gold, National PRO of WABOTAN, at the ninth Nigeria Tourism Investors Forum and Exhibition (NTIFE), held over two days in Abuja under the theme “Tourism Transformation Through Collaboration, Policy Alignment and Investment.” The events took place between Thursday 30 to Friday 31 of July 2026. Waterfront Boat Owners and Transporters Association of Nigeria (WABOTAN), is a corporate member of FTAN
The forum drew policymakers, investors, tourism operators and development partners.
FTAN President Dr Aliyu Badaki used his welcome remarks to press the Federal Government to overhaul tourism-related laws and regulatory frameworks that he said breed duplication, institutional conflict and legal uncertainty for operators. He said the federation’s newly developed Tourism Transformation Mandate (TTM) is meant to unify every segment of the tourism value chain.
Babatope Fajemirokun, through Chief Gold emphasizes the fact that this value chain for Nigeria’s coastal cities, riverine communities and inland waterway corridors, runs directly through water transport.
Badaki argued that fragmented efforts and weak coordination have held back the sector for years, and called for regulation that enables rather than inhibits growth.
Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, who declared the forum open, described tourism as a strategic pillar for economic diversification. She said government cannot finance tourism transformation alone and that private capital must lead, with government’s role limited to creating an enabling environment for investors.
In his keynote address, Sen. Ibrahim Ida called for stronger collaboration among government, the private sector and host communities, saying tourism can generate jobs, foreign exchange and diversification if properly harnessed.
Panel sessions, moderated by Justina Ovat of Calabar Hospitality House Limited, featured Nigeria Tourism Development Authority (NTDA) Director-General Dr Ola Awakan, who called for policy consistency and investor-friendly incentives, and Dr Philip Maga of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), who flagged the need for stronger workforce training to close skills gaps across the hospitality industry.
Hospitality entrepreneur Lanre Balogun urged investors to prioritise disciplined, long-term planning.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigeria’s water transport sector, NTIFE’s reform push is not a side conversation. Rather, it is a direct stakeholder issue. FTAN’s corporate membership includes Waterfront Boat Owners and Transporters Association of Nigeria (WABOTAN) and the Association of Tourist Boat Operators and Water Transporters of Nigeria (ATBOWATON), both drawn from the ranks of operators who run the boats, ferries and water taxis that already serve Lagos’s creeks, the Niger Delta’s riverine towns and coastal leisure routes. Their presence inside FTAN means the federation’s demand for regulatory clarity and coordinated policy carries an inland-waterways and blue-economy dimension that goes beyond hotels and heritage sites.
That matters because water tourism sits at an awkward regulatory junction in Nigeria. A tourist boat operator answers not only to tourism authorities but potentially to NIWA, LASWA (in Lagos) and NIMASA on safety standards, and state government tourism boards, precisely the kind of overlapping jurisdiction Badaki described as breeding “duplication, institutional conflicts… and operational uncertainty.”
The 2026 Supreme Court ruling affirming NIWA’s regulatory authority over inland waterways nationwide, following the NIWA-LASWA jurisdictional dispute, is a live example of the kind of institutional friction FTAN’s Tourism Transformation Mandate is meant to resolve, at least on the tourism side.
Musawa’s call for private capital to lead tourism investment also lands squarely on water transport operators’ desks. Vessel acquisition, safety retrofitting, jetty infrastructure and life-jacket compliance all require capital that small-scale operators, including WABOTAN’s member-cooperative structure, have struggled to access, a gap that echoes the long-running CVFF disbursement failure in the cabotage shipping sector and underscores why financing bottlenecks are not unique to cargo and passenger shipping alone.
If FTAN’s push for policy alignment succeeds in drawing water transport formally into Nigeria’s tourism investment architecture, operators like WABOTAN and ATBOWATON could gain a stronger claim to inclusion in infrastructure programmes such as the Omi-Eko electric ferry project and LASWA’s ferry safety development initiatives, turning routine commuter water transport into a recognised leisure and tourism asset, not just a transportation afterthought.
For a sector accustomed to being regulated but rarely consulted, this call by Babatope Fajemirokun is a modest but meaningful call.
Blue Economy
NIMASA Deepens Seafarer Welfare Push, Signs Off Renewed Mission to Seafarers Collaboration
NIMASA Deepens Seafarer Welfare Push, Signs Off Renewed Mission to Seafarers Collaboration
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has restated its commitment to improving the welfare of Nigerian seafarers, pledging deeper collaboration with the Mission to Seafarers (MtS) as part of ongoing reforms in the sector.
The commitment came as the Director-General, Dr Dayo Mobereola, received a delegation from the Mission to Seafarers at the agency’s Lagos headquarters, led by the Chairman of MtS Lagos, Chief Adebayo Sarumi, alongside the Regional Director for Africa, Reverend Cedric Rautenbach.
Speaking on behalf of the DG, NIMASA’s Executive Director for Operations, Engr. Fatai Taiye Adeyemi, said the agency would continue tightening certification processes, expanding capacity development programmes, and strengthening welfare policies for seafarers both at sea and in port, in partnership with stakeholders such as the Mission to Seafarers.
Chief Sarumi commended NIMASA’s ongoing reforms and expressed confidence that closer collaboration would translate into tangible welfare gains for Nigerian maritime professionals. Reverend Rautenbach, for his part, clarified that while the Mission to Seafarers and Nigeria’s Port Welfare Committees pursue a shared objective which is the the wellbeing of seafarers. The two bodies operate on distinct, complementary mandates, making coordination between them essential to strengthening on-ground support at Nigerian ports.
The meeting covered decent working conditions, welfare service gaps, and areas of mutual collaboration. NIMASA said the engagement aligns with its obligations under the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006, and forms part of a broader push toward stronger regulatory oversight and stakeholder engagement on seafarer rights.
Nigeria Watch
Beyond the courtesy-visit optics, this meeting lands on a fault line that has dogged Nigerian seafarer welfare for years: fragmented institutional responsibility. NIMASA regulates and certifies; Port Welfare Committees are meant to deliver frontline services at berths; the Mission to Seafarers, a faith-based international NGO, fills gaps neither statutory body always reaches. These gaps are chaplaincy, shore leave support, emergency assistance, and advocacy for stranded or abandoned crew.
Rautenbach’s point about “distinct but complementary mandates” is worth pressing on, because in practice that distinction has often meant duplication in some areas and total absence in others.
Nigerian seafarers have long reported patchy access to welfare facilities at ports like Apapa, Tin Can Island, and Onne. Such reports include inconsistent internet access, poor rest facilities, and slow response to cases of wage default or abandonment by errant shipowners, issues MWUN has repeatedly raised in past CBA compliance disputes.
NIMASA’s MLC 2006 framing is the right one, but enforcement, not policy language, remains the industry’s persistent complaint. If this renewed MtS partnership is to mean more than another photo-op at headquarters, it should translate into a documented, port-by-port welfare service map: which ports have functioning seafarer centres, which Port Welfare Committees are actually active, and where the Mission to Seafarers’ Flying Angel network is present versus where seafarers are effectively on their own.
Nigerian crews calling at their own national ports deserve better than welfare support that depends on which NGO happens to be in town.
NIMASA Bets on Youths to Power Nigeria’s Blue Giant Ambitions
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has restated that the country’s push to become Africa’s “Blue Giant” will rise or fall on how well it equips young Nigerians for the blue economy, with the agency’s Director-General, Dr Dayo Mobereola, describing youth capacity-building as the engine room of the National Marine and Blue Economy Policy.
Mobereola made the point at the 10th Taiwo Afolabi Annual Maritime (TAAM) Lecture at the University of Lagos, where he was represented by NIMASA’s Director of Reforms Coordination and Blue Economy, Mrs Nneka Obianyor. He linked the agency’s youth agenda directly to President Bola Tinubu’s economic diversification drive, noting that the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, has directed NIMASA to prioritise skills development and job creation for young Nigerians in the sector.
Director-General of NIMASA, Dr. Dayo Mobereola
To back that up, Mobereola pointed to a cluster of NIMASA programmes already running: the long-standing Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP), a newly launched Blue Economy Accelerator Initiative, skills acquisition centres spread across the six geopolitical zones, and the rollout of Institutes of Maritime Studies in select Nigerian universities. He framed these as deliberate interventions meant to build capacity, generate employment, and spur innovation among the country’s youth population.
Separately, NIMASA used the UNILAG engagement to go beyond ceremony, running an interactive session with doctoral and master’s students on shipping development, maritime logistics, cabotage implementation, and maritime labour regulation. The session was led by the agency’s Director of Cabotage Services, Ms Gloria Anyasodo, and was pitched as part of a broader effort to strengthen ties between academia and industry in tackling the maritime sector’s practical challenges.
Nigeria Watch
The optics are good; the test, as always, will be delivery. NIMASA has no shortage of youth-facing initiatives on paper. The NSDP has existed for years, skills centres have been announced before, and Institutes of Maritime Studies have been floated in past budget cycles. What’s new here is the Blue Economy Accelerator Initiative, and it arrives with the same vagueness that has dogged similar rollouts: no disclosed funding envelope, no timeline for the six geopolitical zone centres to be fully operational, and no public framework for how graduates of these programmes are absorbed into shipping, logistics, or cabotage jobs afterward.
That absorption question matters more than any lecture-hall soundbite. Nigeria’s maritime training pipeline, from MAN Oron to the seafarer certification backlog that this publication has tracked, already produces more qualified hands than the domestic fleet and port ecosystem can currently employ. This is a mismatch tied directly to the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund’s decades-long disbursement failure and the slow pace of indigenous vessel acquisition. Training more youths without fixing that bottleneck simply shifts the frustration downstream, from unemployment to underemployment.
There’s also an accountability gap in how these announcements are made. They are usually made through a lecture delegation rather than a costed policy document. If NIMASA and the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy are serious about youths driving the Blue Giant ambition, the next disclosure should include enrolment numbers, the accelerator’s funding source, and most critically, the placement data showing how many NSDP and skills-centre graduates have actually found sea-time or shore-based maritime employment. Until then, this remains a well-intentioned promise stacked on top of several older, still-unfulfilled promises.
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