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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
NPA, Stakeholders Chart Course to End Lekki Port Corridor Traffic Crisis
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has convened a high-level stakeholders’ meeting to tackle the chronic traffic gridlock that has paralysed access roads to Lekki Deep Seaport and its surrounding industrial corridor for over a year, with participants agreeing on concrete measures to restore order to one of Nigeria’s most strategically important port gateways.
The meeting, chaired by Lekki Port Manager Emmanuel Anda, brought together representatives of the Lagos State Government, Lekki Port management, Dangote Refinery, truck owners’ associations, and the Electronic Truck Call-Up System operator, Mycallup — signalling a coordinated multi-agency response to a problem that has long frustrated port users and logistics operators.
A central resolution from the meeting was the outright prohibition of stationary trucks and tankers along the Lekki port corridor. Going forward, all trucks must remain in designated holding bays and waiting areas until they receive electronic clearance to proceed to the port or adjacent industrial facilities.
The agreement followed a joint inspection of the Lekki access roads by meeting participants, who observed firsthand the scale of the congestion. Stakeholders subsequently resolved that the situation could no longer be allowed to continue unchecked.
Dangote Refinery Trucks Identified as Key Factor
Mycallup’s representative, Timi Koteolu, identified trucks servicing Dangote Refinery outside the electronic scheduling platform as a significant contributor to the bottleneck. He noted that many drivers operating with Dangote’s Authority to Collect (ATC) permits had been parking indiscriminately along corridor roads while awaiting refinery access — and that these trucks are currently not integrated into the port’s electronic call-up system.
Dangote Refinery’s representative, Jaiyeola Moshood, clarified that the ATC permits represent the approved access mechanism for tankers entering the refinery. However, Mycallup maintained its position: trucks without an active call-up must not approach the port corridor and should remain in designated waiting areas until required.
Lekki Port Manager Anda specifically urged Dangote Refinery to fully integrate with the electronic truck call-up platform, noting that such collaboration would substantially reduce indiscriminate truck presence on access roads. He further assured participants that discussions with Dangote Refinery management would continue to strengthen coordination of truck movements, with ATC-permit vehicles only permitted to proceed when duly cleared.
The Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) and the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) pledged support for the initiative, committing to sensitise their members while calling for firm enforcement of traffic regulations. NUPENG’s Dangote Refinery Coordinator, Ademola Adeshina, also assured stakeholders of his members’ readiness to comply with the established Standard Operating Procedures.
Nigeria Watch
The Lekki port corridor gridlock is more than a traffic management problem — it is a symptom of the infrastructural and coordination deficit that continues to shadow Nigeria’s ambitions for a world-class port ecosystem.
Lekki Deep Seaport was designed as a transformational asset: a deep-draft facility capable of receiving the large vessels that historically bypassed Nigeria for Lomé, Abidjan, and Tema. Its proximity to the Dangote Refinery — the largest single-train refinery in the world — amplified that promise, creating what should be a uniquely powerful industrial and logistics corridor on the Lagos coast.
Yet the gridlock that has persisted for over a year on those same access roads tells a different story. It exposes a coordination gap that was foreseeable: two enormous, truck-intensive operations — a major seaport and a 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery — sharing corridor infrastructure without a unified traffic and scheduling framework from the outset.
The NPA deserves credit for convening this meeting and driving a stakeholder-wide response. Equally important is the frank identification of the Dangote Refinery’s ATC-permit trucks as a key factor — an acknowledgement that is necessary before any durable solution can take hold. The call for the refinery to integrate with the Mycallup electronic call-up platform is the right prescription. Until the corridor’s two dominant traffic generators operate on a single, synchronised scheduling system, ad hoc enforcement alone will struggle to hold.
For Nigeria’s maritime sector, the stakes extend beyond Lekki. The port’s performance directly influences how global shipping lines and terminal operators assess Nigeria’s readiness to handle increased cargo volumes — and whether the country can translate its port infrastructure investments into measurable trade competitiveness. A corridor choked with waiting tankers and unscheduled trucks undermines that case.
The broader lesson is one that NPA, NIMASA, and Lagos State should absorb as Badagry Deep Seaport, Ibom Deep Seaport, and other greenfield port projects advance: corridor traffic management frameworks must be designed and agreed before operations begin, not retrofitted after a crisis has taken hold.
UK Commandos Board Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker in Historic English Channel Seizure
First British-led operation targets oil revenues bankrolling Moscow’s Ukraine war
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Royal Marine Commandos have boarded and seized a sanctioned Russian shadow fleet tanker in the English Channel in what is being described as a landmark escalation by the United Kingdom in the global effort to choke off the oil revenues sustaining Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.The vessel, identified as the Smyrtos and sailing under a Cameroon flag, was intercepted in the early hours of Sunday in a joint operation involving Chinook helicopters, surveillance aircraft, a Royal Navy frigate, and a Royal Navy minehunter — a deployment that underscored the seriousness with which London is now approaching sanctions enforcement on the high seas.Officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) accompanied the commandos onto the vessel, scrutinising cargo records and shipping documents as part of ongoing investigations. Footage released by the British government showed commandos fast-roping onto the tanker’s deck in the pre-dawn darkness.
It is the first time Britain has taken the lead in directly interdicting a vessel linked to Russia’s shadow fleet — a murky network of ageing, obscurely-owned tankers that Moscow has deployed to move its crude oil beyond the reach of Western sanctions.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the operation sent an unambiguous message to those propping up the Kremlin’s war chest. “This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fuelling Putin’s war in Ukraine that we will not let them hide,” he posted on X.
The Smyrtos will remain detained off England’s south coast pending further investigation. Paris co-operated closely with London in the operation, the UK government confirmed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the seizure and called on European governments to go even further, urging legislative action that would permit not just the detention of tankers but the outright confiscation of their cargoes. “This will certainly help bring peace closer,” he wrote.
Britain has been steadily tightening its grip on shadow fleet activity. Since launching its crackdown, London has sanctioned close to 600 vessels associated with the network. In March, Prime Minister Starmer authorised the British military to board and detain Russian-linked ships suspected of sanctions evasion — authority that was used operationally for the first time on Sunday.
What it means for global shipping
The operation carries significant implications for maritime commerce worldwide, including for Nigerian shipping operators, freight forwarders, and vessel owners with international exposure. Flag states — including African nations whose flags have been exploited by shadow fleet operators seeking cover — may face increased scrutiny from European maritime authorities.
Nigeria, as a prominent flag-of-convenience registrant and a major oil-exporting nation, has a stake in how the international community tightens regulations around tanker ownership transparency, beneficial ownership disclosure, and sanctioned-cargo tracking. The Cameroon flag flown by the Smyrtos at the time of its seizure is a reminder that African maritime registries can be drawn into geopolitical disputes well beyond the continent’s shores.
Maritime legal experts say the British action may embolden other nations to adopt more aggressive enforcement postures, potentially reshaping the legal landscape around vessel detention in international and territorial waters.
Waterways News — Nigeria’s Most Authoritative Maritime News
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Liberia Crosses Historic 300 Million GT Threshold, Tightens Grip on Global Ship Registry Leadership
Liberia Crosses Historic 300 Million GT Threshold, Tightens Grip on Global Ship Registry Leadership
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Liberian Ship Registry has written another chapter into global maritime history, becoming the first flag administration in the world to surpass 300 million gross tons (GT) in registered fleet size, a feat that further entrenches its standing as the largest and fastest-growing ship registry on the planet.
Figures released by international maritime data and intelligence provider Clarksons show that the Liberian-flagged fleet, administered on behalf of the Liberian Maritime Authority by the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry (LISCR), hit 307.3 million gross tons as of June 8, 2026 — a tonnage figure that dwarfs the combined capacity of several traditional maritime nations and underscores just how dominant the West African nation’s flag has become in the eyes of global shipowners.
From Challenger to Undisputed Leader
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders watching the global flag-state landscape, the scale of Liberia’s ascent is worth pausing on. As recently as June 2023, Liberia overtook Panama — a registry that had held the title of the world’s largest for three uninterrupted decades, stretching back to 1993 — to become the new number one by gross tonnage. At that point, Liberia’s fleet stood at 246.5 million GT.
In the three years since dethroning Panama, Liberia has added more than 60 million gross tons to its books, a rate of expansion that few open registries, including those competing aggressively for newbuilding business, have managed to match. The Registry now accounts for roughly 17 percent of the entire global merchant fleet by tonnage, with 6,092 vessels currently flying the Liberian flag, according to data from IHS.
Newbuildings Driving the Surge
Behind the headline number lies a structural shift in how shipowners are choosing to flag their vessels, particularly newly constructed ones. Over the past two years, Liberia has firmly established itself as the preferred flag of choice for new tonnage entering the water, capturing an extraordinary 28 percent of all global newbuilding gross tonnage during that period.
This newbuilding dominance has translated directly into the Registry’s most recent growth figures: between June 2025 and June 2026 alone, the Liberian fleet expanded by 9.3 percent in tonnage — a growth rate that, on a fleet this size, represents tens of millions of additional gross tons in just twelve months.
LISCR Leadership Reacts
Reacting to the milestone, LISCR Chief Executive Officer, Alfonso Castillero, attributed the achievement to the Registry’s global workforce and the sustained confidence shipowners have placed in the Liberian flag.
“This milestone belongs to every member of the Registry’s team. Our people, across every office, in every time zone, in every discipline, show up every single day with a commitment to our clients and to the standards that make this registry what it is,” Castillero said.
He added: “Behind every gross tonne is a vessel, and behind every vessel is a shipowner who chose to trust us. That trust is something we never take for granted, and it is the team that earns it, day after day.”
Nigeria Watch
For Nigeria’s maritime sector, Liberia’s record-setting growth offers more than a curiosity from the world of flag administration — it is a live case study in how an open registry, built on service quality, regulatory responsiveness and global trust, can capture an outsized share of one of shipping’s most strategically important commodities: where vessels are flagged.
Nigeria does not operate as an international open registry in the Liberian or Panamanian mould, and its cabotage regime under the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act is built around very different objectives — protecting indigenous tonnage and shipowners rather than competing for global flag-of-convenience traffic. Even so, the scale and speed of Liberia’s growth carries indirect relevance for stakeholders across Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Lekki and the wider Nigerian port complex.
A significant share of the foreign-owned vessels calling at Nigerian terminals, including the crude carriers, product tankers and container ships that move Nigerian export and import cargo, are likely to be Liberian-flagged given the Registry’s near 17 percent share of global tonnage and its grip on newbuilding registrations. That means NIMASA’s port state control inspectors, NPA’s terminal operations teams and Nigerian Navy maritime domain awareness units are routinely interacting with the Liberian flag administration’s standards, certification regimes and survey requirements — whether through SOLAS, MARPOL or STCW compliance checks on calling vessels.
The episode also offers a pointed reference point as Nigeria continues its long-running effort to revive its national shipping line and build out indigenous tonnage capacity through mechanisms such as the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF). Liberia’s success illustrates how registry reputation, ease of registration, competitive fee structures and responsive client service can become decisive factors in where shipowners choose to place their vessels — lessons that may inform Nigeria’s own efforts, including NIMASA’s recent ship registry reform partnership with Malta, as the country seeks to make its own flag more attractive to both indigenous and, potentially, foreign-owned tonnage in the years ahead.
For now, Liberia’s 307.3 million GT milestone stands as a benchmark figure against which the ambitions of every other registry — including any future expansion of Nigeria’s own fleet registration regime — will inevitably be measured.
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