Story by Dili Utomi.
The seemingly intractable problems confronting the various operations within the maritime sector prompted the Anchor of Nigeria Ports Conference to organise a summit with the title: Achieving Seamless Ports and Cargo Business in Nigeria a few days ago.
It had a lot of high profile stakeholders in attendance and they truly bore their minds on the nature of the problems bogging down Cargo business in Nigeria and suggested several steps that should be taken to address the situation and make it all better.
The organiser is the experienced James Shodiya who said that “What informed this topic of discourse is based on the statistics that Nigeria is Strategically located at a significant Point in the Atlantic ocean with about 853 kilometers coastline and this gives Nigeria a geographical advantage to become a maritime hub in the whole west and central African region”.
“What that means is that our nation is well positioned and blessed with abundant resources among the maritime nations around the world, but has so many defaults in the system of ports and cargo business and the economy”.
Comptroller Abosede A. Anthony (Rtd.) said in her message that “In my years of experience as a Customs officer, getting the ports system working has always been my mindset. No doubt, some stakeholders in the logistics chain will try and continue trying to cut corners to frustrate the system. That is why I am happy to identify with the theme of your discourse at this year’s conference that says: Achieving Seamless Ports & Cargo Business in Nigeria Challenges/Prospects.
The keynote address from Dr. Leonard Anyanwu was presented by McAnthony Onuoha and in the speech he detailed some of the problems confronting seamless cargo business as infrastructure deficiency, inefficient process, security concerns, regulatory and administrative hurdles and capacity and skills gaps.
Dr. Anyanwu recommended some of the solutions to the problems as infrastructural development, process automation and digitisation, security enhancements, regulatory reforms, capacity building and training.
Some other speakers like Lukman Rotimi Shittu a.k.a Zangalo advised that the existing regulations should be strengthened and that proper application and implementation of all protocols should be observed.
Chief Remi Ogungbemi, the president of the Association of Maritime Trucks Owners said that without trucks and truckers, we cannot move our cargos from the Ports. He noted that ” We are the movers of the economy”. He admonished that most of the places where trucks should be parked have been taken over by all manners of buildings and movable structures thereby causing all kinds of traffic problems that has just been partly cleared and that solutions should be provided for this anomaly.
Chief Ogungbemi went down memory lane and stated that the Lagos Ports started from the Marina area before it was moved to Apapa, but that the foundations of the Ports have still been tampered with. He wants a revisit of all operational matters so that the various bottlenecks can be removed for easy movement of cargos.
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