Leadership, January 21,2020,Page 34
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has bemoaned Nigerian Ports absence from the global review of maritime transport due to the impediments in the nation’s seaports.
Speaking at the stakeholders meeting to find a lasting solution to the Apapa gridlock organized by the NSC, the Director Consumer Services Cajetan Agu said Nigeria Ports generate 70 percent of trade in Africa but not efficient enough.
He said ‘’it is a shame that we are here discussing about traffic on the port access roads’ ‘Globally if you don’t compete you will perish, we are here discussing while we have other ports in West-Africa that are in competition, go and look at the review of the maritime transport in 2019,no port in Nigeria was mentioned, the only Port mentioned was Lomé port Nigeria generate almost 70 percent of the cargo inputs of West-Africa’’.
Agu said while calling for co-operation among government officials at the seaports to tackle the gridlock on the port access roads, I recommend that after this stakeholders’ meeting, the Chairman of the task team should have to call for another meeting, let us meet with port managers to take into consideration the opinion expressed here and make sure that we put in place an efficient traffic management that can be sustained.
