EDITORIAL
As Nigeria turns 65 amidst the celebration of World Maritime Day, it is fitting to reflect on the country’s major milestones in sea trade. There have been four phases in the development of Nigeria’s merchant marine industry since her existence as an independent maritime nation, composed of a rise, a golden age, and a decline, in that order. At the end of this analysis, it will be obvious what triggered the greatest fall and what, logically, can be done to recover the ante. The first stage of Nigeria’s development in international shipping began in 1959 when a state-owned carrier was established called the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) following the clamour by nationalist leaders in the 1940s and 1950s. The dividends of NNSL’s emergence yielded foreign exchange generation, growth of the indigenous seamanship capacity of the country to more than 2000 trained master mariners, marine engineers, radio officers, electricians, catering officers and other skilled ranks of the appropriate workforce, afloat and ashore, to operate the shipping line. Moreover, there was a domino effect of additional increase of foreign remittances from Nigerian sailors working abroad for other shipping lines in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Singapore, and many European countries. The weakness of the era, however, was that though Nigeria had this semblance of a flowing maritime trade, it was still a toddler maritime nation because of ineptitude in the ranks of the shipping managers at the Lagos headquarters and various Nigerian offices, including the main UK representative office called Niger Line UK, where the ships’ sailing schedules, ship maintenance office, and cargo marketing divisions were practicalized. Moreover, it only succeeded in carrying about 12% of the total volume of the Nigerian trade out of its 40% share of the UNCTAD sharing formula, 40-40-20. After the Shagari administration made the mistake of sacking the British managers in charge of the Niger Line Office, NNSL’s operations began to unravel due to the incompetence of the Nigerians who took over from them. This was the first stage of the decline of the indigenous trade which culminated in the liquidation of the company in 1995.
The second phase started in 1987 when General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida signed Decree 10 which gave birth to the National Shipping Policy and the National Maritime Authority (NMA). This signaled the onset of Nigeria’s golden era in international merchant marine competition as the law provided for supportive policies that empowered indigenous private sector shipping companies to emerge and compete against the foreign carriers in the carriage of cargoes for the Nigerian market. Many shipping companies were registered by the NMA and supported carrying cargo belonging to the Federal, State, and Local Governments of the country. It is ironic that a military regime displayed such keen understanding of the mechanisms of international shipping and successfully equipped many Nigerians to claim their national rights, men usually perceived as unfit for public administration being soldiers trained mainly for defense. But they understood the rudiments of having a seat at the dinner table of the world through active participation in maritime trade. No other administration since Nigeria’s independence in 1960 displayed similar shrewdness typically found mostly in the protocols of the traditional maritime nations of Europe, North America, and Asia. In addition to allocating cargoes to indigenous as well as foreign carriers, the National Maritime Authority gave $92m in loans to eight indigenous shipping companies, including the NNSL to buy and repair ships under the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund (SASBF). Since independence, this was the only era marked by such robust maritime policies that catalyzed further positive developments for the larger economy, unlike the present era where the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) cannot be administered by NIMASA due to myopic politics. In sum, the NMA successfully implemented the National Shipping Policy which improved all the right indices of indigenous participation in international shipping until the era ended under the Obasanjo administration in 2001 when he unwisely suspended the cargo reservation programme and the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund.
The third phase of Nigeria’s indigenous maritime development was negative and began in 1995 when the NNSL was liquidated. Just as the founding of the company raised the profile of indigenous participation in ocean shipping and related merchant marine activities, the liquidation cast a gloomy spell on the economy. Thousands of employees were laid off, with the company’s assets discounted against the liabilities in Nigeria and Europe, cadet training floundered due to the lack of sea-time berths for navigation and engineering graduates of Nigeria’s nautical colleges, and the foreign competitors took over more of the vacated turf. This led to the fourth phase in the evolution of the indigenous trade which was also negative and marked by the suspension of the cargo reservation policy and the SASBF in 2001. The promulgation of the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act in 2004 which ought to have brought an encore to the role of the NNSL failed to lift the fortunes of indigenous shipping companies. The feedback from local operators is unflattering as their aged fleets are dubbed “rust buckets” and business is not channeled their way. Hence, the recovery of Nigeria’s indigenous maritime trade requires stronger motivated leadership at the NIMASA and the reactivation of supportive policies to empower local operators’ cargo-carrying capacity as was done by the NMA during the 1980s and 1990s.
Edmund Chilaka, Ph.D.