As the Lekki Deep Seaport gets set for operations, landlocked countries of Chad, Mali and Niger Republic have indicated an interest in routing their cargoes through Nigeria.
Already, the Nigerian Ports Authority(NPA) and Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC) are working on affordable tariffs for the proposed operations.
Speaking at an interactive session with Journalists, the Managing Director, NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko, explained that the commencement of port operations would make Nigeria wrest lost transit cargoes from neighbouring countries.
“By the 15th of this month, Lekki deep seaport will have completed the installation of its equipment, so we can say the port is ready by 15th of September, however, this is the first time in a long time that a new port will be set up in Nigeria.
“A port with a different system, different IT deployment that we don’t have currently in Nigeria will be at Lekki. No port currently in Nigeria has a Ship To Shore Crane. The IT system they have has minimal human interaction you will do your clearance, and other clearance processes from your office and finishes everything, containers will be identified using a digital information system.
“From the 16th of September, they will start dry runs and testing. They are recruiting and probably have finished recruiting Nigerians that will work there and they need to train them on how to use the cranes and how to use the digital system, clearing system and all that and that takes a lot of time, so from our interactions with them, as far as we are concerned,
“The Niger Republic as a country formerly imported their cargoes through Nigeria Ports. Mali is also interested and there are entities of neighbouring countries that are interested in bringing in their cargoes, but ours is to reach out as far as possible.
“We are encouraging the port management in Warri and Calabar, in particular, to actually go to Cameroon and there was a business that came to the port because of the engagement our port managers had with importers in Cameroon so we will keep pushing these multilateral and cross border agreement and where we need the assistance of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Transportation, we will let them know.
