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By Steve Agbota
Across the globe, the maritime sector is rapidly evolving as digital innovation reshapes shipping efficiency, environmental sustainability and operational safety. Emerging maritime technologies are now central to modern fleet management, helping shipping operators cut costs, enhance regulatory compliance and strengthen supply chain reliability across international trade routes.
Leading maritime nations have already gained competitive advantage by adopting advanced shipping technologies early, aligning their operations with global regulatory standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). These countries are preparing for the January 1, 2028 implementation deadline for mandatory regulations governing Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS), positioning themselves for future dominance in global shipping and logistics.
According to maritime policy expert Olisa Agbakoba, Nigeria stands to gain substantially from this global shift. He projected that full adoption of emerging maritime technologies could generate between N5 trillion and N6 trillion annually for the country. Agbakoba stressed that investing in smart ports, digital navigation systems and maritime automation would strengthen Nigeria’s trade competitiveness while creating new economic opportunities across the maritime value chain.
Meanwhile, he said that this revenue potential comes through early adoption advantages and positioning Nigeria as a regional hub for digital maritime services.
According to him, early implementation before the IMO’s deadline would give Nigeria a competitive advantage in West African maritime services, attract technology investments, and capture digital trade documentation fees currently lost to foreign platforms.
“Nigeria must enact the Legal Framework for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) to position Nigeria for emerging maritime technologies before IMO’s mandatory 2028 requirements, enact the Electronic Bill of Lading (eB/L) Framework to digitalise maritime trade documentation and capture fees currently lost to foreign platforms,” he advised.
He also said that Nigeria needs to enact a Blue Economy Act to establish a comprehensive legal framework for Nigeria’s blue economy covering marine governance, resource management, and economic development, with provisions establishing the National Blue Economy Commission to coordinate activities across ministries and agencies, providing clear rules on marine resource allocation, licensing, and conservation, defining legal responsibilities for the private sector, local communities, and government agencies, and outlining penalties for environmental violations, illegal fishing, and marine pollution.
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He said there is a need to amend the Sea Fisheries Act (1992) to increase fines and penalties for IUU fishing, strengthen monitoring and surveillance of Nigeria’s fishing waters using satellite tracking and observer programs, and require fishing vessels to adopt sustainable practices and report catch data transparently; and support capacity building and research institutions, support universities and research institutes in marine sciences and innovation to develop indigenous expertise.
He noted that revenue from emerging maritime technologies could come from diverse sources, including pharmaceutical companies harnessing marine resources for drug development, licensing fees from marine research and bioprospecting firms exploring Nigeria’s waters, and export income from seaweed farming used in food, cosmetics and biofuel production. Additional earnings could be generated through public-private partnerships in marine-based biofuel projects.
He also highlighted potential government income from extraction of rare earth minerals, manganese and cobalt within Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone, taxation of battery mineral exploration firms, controlled sand dredging for construction and land reclamation, and licensing fees from scientific coral and marine resource harvesting activities.
Conversely, Gbenga Leke Oyewole, a seasoned maritime security expert and former Senior Special Assistant on Maritime Services to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, said that autonomous service vehicles for water patrols, it is going to help a lot because the government is not going to be sending human beings to places, offshore locations, or determining which vessel is where or what they should pick, saying that would do so many things.
“Because even as we talk, the level of technology, even that already exists now, is such that it can determine a lot of commercial activities and also support commercial agencies, like the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Customs and all that. That’s a technology that already gained a lot of ground, and we have deployed it. That’s under the Space Agency. We already have it, and it’s available for use,” he said.
According to him, these modern technologies can do a lot in commercial activities in the nation’s maritime space, adding that numerous emerging maritime technologies are very useful and that Nigeria should adopt.
“These emerging maritime technologies are going to help us a lot in many of the things that we do, especially where we turn a blind eye, which will allow us to gain visibility over the maritime domain. And we’re going to be able to determine a lot of things concerning the environment.
“So, a lot of things can be gained from that. And we’re already deploying a number of them in Nigeria. So, it’s not going to be anything new. The 2028 target, we are already set, even this year, to deploy more than 80 per cent of some of those technologies. So, we are set to do that.
“But if they are saying, they would implement certain mandatory things concerning the unmanned surface vehicles on the sea, which means there are certain things that IMO wants to make compulsory so that it does not constitute a safety problem to the shipping lines,” he said.
