Nigerians lose capacity to own ships to foreigners 

With an average of 4,000 vessels calling at Nigerian seaports annually, only a paltry 318 representing 0.06 percent were owned by Nigerian Shipowners, investigation has shown.

According to the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics, on the Nigerian Ports, 2012 – 2017 reflected that ship traffic at the Nigerian ports recorded a total of 5,369 in 2013 to 5,349 in 2014. In 2015, the figure dropped to 5,090 and reduced drastically to 4,025 in 2016.

While in 2017, 4,175 ocean going vessels with 131,569,821 gross registered tonnage was recorded against 4,622 ocean going vessels with 134,2,13,076 gross registered tonnage in 2016.

But, unfavourable economic policies and lacklustre maritime administration may have resulted in painful reduction in the number of vibrant indigenous shipping companies operating in Nigeria in recent years.

For instance, no fewer than 90 per cent of shipping companies owned by Nigerians have completely shut down their operations and out of shipping business.

Shipping companies such as Equitorial Energy, Oceanic Energy, Morlap Shipping, Peacegate, Pokat Nigeria Limited, Al-Dawood Shipping, Potram Nigeria Limited, Joseph Sammy, Genesis Worldwide Shipping and Multi-trade Group are all our of business thereby contracting indigenous shipping companies participation in the sector over the years

But, speaking at the post economic outlook quarterly verdict organised by MMS Plus, a maritime based publication over the weekend, tagged, Post Election Economy: Exploring strategies for growth, the chairman of the Nigerian Port Consultative Council,  (NPCC), Otunba Kunle Folarin,  said Nigeria participation in the shipping industry is dismal and not encouraging.

According to him, out of every 5307 vessels that call at Nigerian ports, only 0.06 percent are owned by Indigenous operators which he said has affected the development of Nigerian shipping sector.

He however called for introduction of a deliberate shipping development policy for the count to change its dismal status in the shipping industry.

“I think the mix is that number of Nigerians who are operators in the industry, those running the industry and owns all categories of ships whether tankers, badges, tug boats, service boats or ship in the oil and gas sector are less than 100.

It is clear and we have said it that there must be shipping development policy and that is one of the reasons why the shipping policy was established in 1987. Then, there was a shipping policy that so much cargoes must go to Nigerians and once you have cargoes, you will be encouraged to have ships because if you have ships and no cargoes, you go underground but the important thing is that if there is that large volume of trade then there would be a huge demand for shipping services that is why we have such number of ships calling and there is a very dismal percentage of participation by Nigerians because of lack of capacity.

Otunba Folarin who urged government to make the nation’s maritime sector a preferred sector by providing low incentives for acquisition of vessels also urged the local shipowners to seek other various mode of financing acquisition of assets instead if relying on the Cabotage Vessels Finance Fund (CVFF).

“What we need to do is to fine tune our shipping development policy and that will help because shipping development means cargo allocation, investment in the sector, incentives also in the sector, low interest rate like it’s done in agriculture. Government should also make the maritime sector to be a preferred sector in and provided fund for in the banking industry.

Speaking in CVFF, Otunba Folarin said, “How many ships can the CVFF procure? My view is that people have over emphasised the change agents the CVFF will be and it is not exactly the messiah, but I advised shipowners to look at ship finance in a very holistic way and not from government alone. They should look at ship finance with other model of financing, there are other model of financing, we must look at other model of accessing finance for ship building, ship acquisition so they shouldn’t depend in CVFF.

Also speaking, the Shipowners’ Association of Nigeria (SOAN) also urged the government to set up a long term development plan for ship acquisition if it truly want to belong to ship owning nations of the world.

In a chat with journalists, the newly elected president of the association, Dr McGeorge Oyung, said the vessels calling at the country’s seaports are owned by countries that have invested heavily in ship building and acquisition.

“Everybody knows the fact that the ocean is owned and controlled by the United Nation, no one owns the ocean because It’s an open place where anyone who owns ship can enter provided it is licensed by the flag state and flagged but the problems is that if other nations are buying ships and we don’t buy or maintain our ships or rather have a proper plan that in the next ten years, this is the number of ships we will have then we will remain where we are.”

I don’t want to take the job of NPA MD, NIMASA DG Of National Content MD but the truth of the matter is that 5307 vessel are owned by ship-owning nations like Greece, Portuguese so we can’t own the number of ships they have but we must begin to make effort to have our own ships. We can’t stop any ship from coming to our port because the ocean belongs to no one.

“We have Cabotage but before we can do Cabotage because we need to have our own vessels and if we don’t have, we will have to address that issue and devise what methodology in building up our fleet either in acquisition of vessels, or building in the country and we will do and see how we can negotiate and dialogue with government.

He however vowed to engage the government and share strategies on how to boost indigenous shipping participation in the country.

“We won’t force government to take our strategy because we don’t work for them but we will engage them, focus and negotiate with them for them to see the enormous potentials in the shipping sector.”