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By Steve Agbota
While the federal government goes on annual borrowing spree to bolster the economy, stakeholders in the nation’s maritime industry have asked the presidency to look inwards as the oceans, often overlooked, have the capacity to become Nigeria’s new economic arteries if well harnessed.
Nigeria, as a country, is blessed with a large resource base of waterways spanning 10,000 kilometres, and about 3,800 kilometres are navigable seasonally, according to the National Inland Waterways Authority.
While 28 of the nation’s 36 states can be accessed through water, Nigeria can also link five of its neighbouring countries, such as the Benin Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Chad and the Niger Republic by water.
The Rivers Niger and Benue constitute the major channels for inland navigation, which include but are not limited to the Cross River, Port Novo-Badagry-Lagos waterways, Lekki and Lagos Lagoons, Ogun-Ondo waterways, Benin River, Escravos channel, Nun River, Imo River, Orashi River, Ethiope River, Oguta Lake, Lake Chad and the numerous creeks in the Niger Delta.
This positions Nigeria to earn N12 trillion annually revenue on a conservative estimate from the inland waterways if the government can invest in it to maximise its potential.
Experts have warned that Nigeria’s inland waterways, rich in natural resources, remain largely untapped, even as other countries leverage similar assets for trade facilitation, regional integration, climate resilience, poverty reduction, and innovation.
According to the Daily Sun, years of neglect and mismanagement have left the waterways to decay, with some officials accused of diverting funds meant for their development. Today, many channels are clogged with waste, turning them into open dumpsites. Meanwhile, citizens who risk using the waterways for local transport face deadly, avoidable accidents, highlighting the urgent need for strategic investment, proper maintenance, and safety measures to unlock their economic and social potential.
Experts are of the opinion that inland waterway transport is a money-spinning business. If it is well developed, it can bring innovation and international best practice to Nigeria because it will introduce performance-based contracts to make dredging more cost-effective and maintain the waterways for year-round day and night navigation and virtually, it will open up a new stream of revenue through tourism, while opening up hinterland cultural clusters to the world.
However, in his recent policy paper on how inland waterways development can generate between N10 and N12 trillion annually, the founder and first President of the Nigerian Shipping Chamber of Commerce and Senior Partner at Olisa Agbakoba Legal (OAL), Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), said that the bad state of the ports is directly connected to the nation’s inland waterways.
“When the British were here, we had 42 inland waterways connected to roads and railways for cargo movement. Nigeria must build a multimodal superhighway linking roads, trains, and inland waterways to maximise our trade potential.
“Nigeria’s inland waterways represent transformational economic corridors comparable to the Nile in Egypt. Dredging the River Benue to Lokoja and the River Niger from Baro in Niger State to the Atlantic Ocean to a minimum draught of ten feet will enable transportation from Baro to Onitsha by speed boat in 90 minutes instead of 9 hours, and ferrying tonnes of yams and other farm produce from Makurdi to Onitsha on self-propelled barges in three hours,” he said.
He said that the Nile River, at 26 to 36 feet deep, supports heavy traffic of cargo and cruise ships, with cruises costing up to $500 per person for four days, adding that a fully operational Niger-Benue river system would dramatically reduce transportation costs, decongest road infrastructure, and create substantial tourism revenues comparable to Egypt’s Nile-based economic corridor.
According to him, this requires amendments to the NIWA Act to mandate systematic dredging programmes and inland port development; enacting a Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) Act to regulate ocean space usage and avoid conflicts between industries (fishing, shipping, tourism, offshore energy), establishing a Marine Spatial Planning Authority to allocate maritime zones, setting rules for zoning fishing areas, shipping lanes, conservation zones, and renewable energy projects, and providing mechanisms for stakeholder consultation and dispute resolution.
He said that it also requires enacting a Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Act to strengthen regulation of fisheries and aquaculture ensuring sustainability and food security, introducing a national fisheries management system to enforce fishing quotas and conservation rules, creating a licensing system for commercial and artisanal fisheries, banning destructive fishing practices and regulating foreign fishing vessels, and strengthening penalties for Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.
He emphasised that there is a need for revitalisation of abandoned inland ports, including the Onitsha River Port, to restore the integrated multimodal transport system essential for economic competitiveness.
He said revenue streams include toll charges on inland waterway transport managed by NIWA, revenue from ferry services for passenger and cargo transportation, foreign vessel licensing fees for companies fishing in Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), commercial fishing permits for industrial-scale fishing companies, artisanal fishing licenses for small-scale fishers, and value-added income from fish processing industries.
Corroborating with Agbakoba, Gbenga Leke Oyewole, a seasoned maritime security expert and former Senior Special Assistant on Maritime Services to ex-President Goodluck, said that inland waterways development is an area to look at by the nation and to be developed in accordance with the spirit of the marine and blue economy strategies.
According to him, inland waterways in Nigeria are almost all non-developed at all, apart from people using flying boats to access their villages and transport things within those domains, saying that he doesn’t think anybody is actually using the waterways the way people are supposed to.
“Let me start talking about dredging the land waters, you know, to Benue or Niger Delta, to Lokoja and many other waterways within the country. You can imagine the economic impact of being able to transport all the northern goods by water as far as Lokoja,” he said.
According to him, even the socioeconomic impact and safety of the roads, because all the trailers that disturb and cause accidents on the road will have to stop at Lokoja to take whatever thing they are taking.
“So, you would have reduced trailer accidents in the southern part of the country by not less than 60% by doing that. That is one part of it. The other part of it has to do with, and I just used that as an example, there are other waterways in the country.
“Do you know that from Lagos to Ondo, if you are going by water, you can make it in about three or four hours? Because Lekki is in the Igbokoda area, if you are going with a speed boat, you can make it in one and a half hours. Instead of going through Ibadan, all those areas before you get to where you are going.
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He noted that it will reduce monies that people spend on transportation, and the movement of goods on water will also reduce the impact of heavy loads on the roads, saving the government a lot of money.
“But let us leave all those impacts by which I can continue on so many of them. Let us look at revenue generation. If these waterways are well developed, to begin with, houses and industries along the waterways can have a sort of levy that they pay. Because you can even put signboards that people can read as they go, and those will be paying money to the government.
“Waste collection, those that generate their effluent from industries and put it directly into the water, are another source of both pollution and potential revenue generation to the government. The opportunities are almost limitless if you consider putting these things in place. You will have places where fishing communities find it difficult to move their catches to the cities.
“There is a regular piece of transportation, like I said, between Igbokoda and Lekki. A fisherman that is stored all night, I mean in the Igbokoda area, in Ondo or Edo area, or as far as the Delta area and with a good catch, can easily access the population of Lagos with whatever thing he or she has taken, and go home with good money. Not an oppressor buying the stock from the person at the water site and coming to Eko Hotel to sell it at a very expensive price,” he explained.
He said if those people are able to come to Eko Hotel or Oriental Hotel to sell directly to them, one can imagine how their economy will improve, saying that it is adding to the modalities of transportation, because if one doesn’t go by rail, by road, then one must go by water.
He advised that this multimodal means of transportation must be integrated, adding that there are people that use big ferries just to move people from point A to point B.
He hinted that people conduct weddings on board ferries, saying that people also conduct birthday parties on board ferries.
“These are all possibilities, but we have closed our eyes to that completely as if it doesn’t exist. Just like the way we close our eyes to the solid mineral resources as if that one is child’s play, that some people are just playing with it. Now they are playing with it on the banditry, and all sorts of national disasters have come out of it.
“So, as a nation, we must explore all these opportunities that God has given to us. Look at the countries in the desert. If they can find 10% of the water in Nigeria, they’ll be rejoicing for life. So, I believe what Olisa Agbakoba said, and it is very correct, extremely correct. He’s always on point. I have known him and respected him for that.
What he said is correct. I corroborate whatever his opinion has been on it with all those things I have told you,” he added.
Speaking with Daily Sun, a tourism expert and a media consultant to NIWA, Frank Meke, said that without sentiment, it’s possible to generate that kind of interest, not just on the financial and lucrative side, it’s planning, and it’s very important.
“Even culturally and socially, Nigeria has a lot of role to play, like the way other countries have developed theirs, a place like Holland. So, the truth of the matter, actually, as I said, there is quite a huge possibility that those things actually can be done. But my worry has to do with Nigeria, is that we actually have not made up our minds on what we want to do with that. We have not made up our mind about what we want to do with it.
‘If we can build coastal roads today, and we are pumping a lot of money into it, if we also show the same interest in our inland waterways, definitely we’ll be getting somewhere. Because we need to dredge the waterways, and there should be security in the nation’s waterways. There will be a huge investment in dredging for ferries to move goods and services, and to move people; you need that kind of funding. So, without having that kind of funding, it will be very difficult, and it looks like you are telling stories as the case may be.
“So the truth of the matter is that it’s possible and it can be done. We can actually start and get it done, and start looking into how we can even curb accidents on our inland waterways. Not much attention has been paid to that area in terms of funding,” he explained.
He said if Nigeria is building coastal roads today, there is a need to pump a little of that half of that money into inland waterways development, which can quickly generate a lot of money on those corridors, Lagos to Onitsha, Lagos to Ondo, Onitsha to Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, and to Cross River.
“We can get those axis, at least create markets in those areas. Definitely, we begin to use that as an example. It is like a test case of our possibilities of what we can do. So, for me, I believe Nigeria can rise through inland waterways in terms of fisheries, in terms of even cities, for instance, these are cities built out of waterways. Cities that are built just like Lagos, that draw their strength from inland waterways. So we could have this kind of marine development and housing development all over. Look at Banana Island today, which is a multimillion-dollar business.
“These are upscale properties drawn out of inland waterways. There are a lot of things to gain. But we have not really set our mind to exploiting those resources. If we set our mind to exploiting it, we need to pump money into dredging, and into security, and then creating a blueprint of what and what we’re expecting from Makurdi to here, from here to Taraba, from there to Cross River and all those things.
“So, when we have those blueprints, then we can begin to set up. Just like today, every state is now clamouring to have inland ports. How can I have an inland port? Most inland ports are inside inland waterways. They are not actually very close to the sea. They are inside inland waterways,” he added.
He said a lot of governors today are also clamouring for resources in terms of discovering oil within, and around inland waterways, particularly those who are within the marine ecosystem, and 28 of them, saying these are a lot of economies that are yet untouched in those areas.
He said that until Nigeria sits down and looks at it very well, that is when they can gain something from the inland waterways development, adding that even the ships coming into the country are coming in not only for goods and services, but also in terms of moving people.
“So, there are a lot of, all those ferries today that don’t come to Nigeria, because we don’t have the depth to accommodate such luxury boats and ships that are coming for just the sake of cruising, moving from one place to the other.
“And we discuss that sometimes, the maritime tourism economy, but basically, looking at it, generally in all ways, it’s like a sitting duck, a threshold of gold, treasures that are there, but nobody has yet discovered it. So, we are just doing the fery-fery for now,” he said.
He said that Nigeria has not really gotten into the nitty-gritty of it, saying that there is a possibility that Nigeria can generate more than N12 trillion if the inland waterways are developed going forward.
