Nigeria  Needs National Maritime Policy – Stakeholder 

Tayo Oladipupo        |

For Nigeria to excel as a maritime nation and in order to fast track economic development in the industry, there is need for her to have a well defined national maritime policy, a critical stakeholder has advocated.

Emeka Emmanuel Enwelu, the Chairman, Apapa Chapter of National Council of Managing Directors of Licenced Customs Agents (NCMDLCA) said that Nigerian maritime industry is so large that it makes the country a maritime nation but added that there is need for viable maritime transport policies that will give the industry a direction.

“Maritime is a large industry which gives us advantage to be a maritime nation, but now what Nigeria needs is a proper maritime policy. As a nation, we need maritime transport policy which will include road and rail transport. 

“So, from that policy, our priorities and development plan will be to have the policy guidelines. When you are trying to have a master plan for the ports, it is not done in isolation of rail, road and inland water transport. 

“You should incorporate all other modes of transport into it. The transport plan must be that, all ports are not congested, less traffic, seemingly zero human traffic.

Speaking further, the NCMDLCA boss blamed influx of fake and substandard goods into the country on Federal Government’s inconsistent policies and compromise on the part of officials of some government agencies at the port. 

“The unstable policies of government has also made the officials of the agencies and trading public to be confused. 

While advising Customs to address the issues of documentation at the point of loading before arrival of any consignment for quick clearance, he called on Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to scrutinize the standard of goods and documents properly at the point of loading to avoid unwarranted alert and safeguard the health and well being of the people.

Enwelu added that the Federal Government’s vision of achieving 48 hours cargo clearance at the seaport cannot be achieved without legal frame work.

He maintained that incessant alerts from customs, NAFDAC, SON, Shipping Companies make it impossible to fulfil the objectives of trade facilitation for the nation. 

“We are having various problems in the port today. There is traffic gridlock on port access roads and without holding bays, our procedure does not meet up with international best practices. 

“The traffic bottleneck is very critical. We cannot talk about 48 hours cargo clearance when we do not have legal framework, port procedures process and port operational process,” he averred.

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