Dr. Obiora Madu is the Chief Executive Officer of Multimix Academy as well as the Director-General of African Centre for Supply Chain. In this interview with Anozie Egole, he speaks on some issues bordering the nation’s maritime logistics sub-sector.
"On the closure of land borders, my take is, you can employ technology to handle this; the technology can be used to monitor smuggling”
What is you take on the directive by Customs CG for the examination of inland dry ports- bound cargoes?
My take is that it will worsen the timely delivery of cargoes which is one of the considerations of World Bank in coming up with the index which we are currently rated 110 where Rwanda and so many other African countries are ahead of us. Rwanda does not even have a port; it is land locked. So it is very sad because people are already complaining about delays, extra cost and all and they are giving a directive on double examinations, for what. Why can’t we even embrace technology so that we won’t have need for first examination not to talk of the second one. So for me, it doesn’t make sense it is just like compounding the logistics problems.
What is your assessment of the World Bank rating of Nigeria?
We all know that the rating is fair, if I give you what the criteria then you will know where Nigeria should belong. It considered ease of shipment in and out, quality of infrastructure; both hard and soft infrastructure, it considered access in and out of the ports. With all these, where will you rate the country? At the CRFFN event someone said how can Rwanda be rated better than Nigeria, I told the person that, it is not by sharing; they don’t share the rating, it is the World Bank that is handling it, not one private consultant, there are bases and the bases were clearly stated. There are internal and international measures and as far as I am concerned that is reality.
As a logistics expert, do you think the closure of land borders is of advantages to the economy of the country?
My response is neither in support nor against, you know it is a tight situation. Is it right to do that? then the question I will ask is this, does it not violate what we signed in the ECOWAS treaty and if it does, then it is not right. But then, if you talk to government they cite security, so you can’t say that they are completely wrong because it is based on the security report that they got that gave rise to what they did. So my reaction will be- is there no better ways to do that and I think there are better ways to do that. On the closure of land borders, my take is, you can employ technology to handle this; the technology can be used to monitor smuggling and all that. Because the thing is as we speak, are goods not still being smuggled into the country of which there are still smugglers. What the government closed is the official borders and there are still ways they pass through. The thing is that we need to realize that we live in a global world; the government said they have been talking to them for long and they have not been adhering to whatever they are saying. These are some of the reasons I told you that it is a dicey situation. That is why I asked- is this the best way it can be handled. I believe that it is possible to achieve the same result without doing what we did.
Recently the IMB said the Lagos waters recorded the highest number of piracy attacks, what is your reaction to that?
I don’t know what to say, because I am not really aware that there is high rate of piracy attacks in Lagos as compared to other places. So maybe that account to one of the reasons why the shipping cost is very expensive coming to Lagos; also in addition to delays and all that, high dwell time at the ships and all that. I really don’t know much about piracy and all that, because I think it has come down.
There seems to be a high rate of cargo diversion to neighboring countries, what do you think is the cause?
The cause is the obvious, looking at the logistics performance index, I mean it is sad to hear that Togo has been declared the logistics hub of West Africa. The fact is that every business man wants to make profit in whichever way. If an increase in distance will reduce the cost, he will do it, we ought to be enjoying a lot because of our location because of so many land-lock countries. This particular closing of land borders now, it is also affecting cargoes from land-lock countries from passing through Nigeria to those countries. So what do you think those countries will do, take a cargo into other counties and find ways of going out. Until we realize what we are losing, some logistics activities in the maritime this country can survive even without oil. What do they have in Singapore, they even buy sand to build houses they don’t have anything. So it is very unfortunate.
What do you think is the cause of the upsurge of Wharf rats in the ports?
The point is that our ports are better than how they were some years back; to be honest. If we have technology who is a rat? Because you can pick him/her up very easily. There is no visibility; if there is visibility nothing will happen you bring you cars there and you take them out and nothing will be removed from it. Wharf rats at the ports never ended maybe they just waited to see if concessioning and the rest of them will bring an end to it and when they didn’t see anything, they returned to their normal businesses.
Do you think Nigeria is a maritime hub as it claimed to be, going by its location?
Which hub, how? If you say maritime hub it has everything to do with logistics. So which hub are you when Togo is the hub of West Africa and goods cannot pass to land lock countries, what type of hub are you. This population and size of the country at times make us not to reason enough. I don’t see us as a maritime hub anywhere, if you think so you have to bring a proof.
What do you have to say on the recent raid of car marts across the country by Customs?
In fact, it is the customs releasing officers and clearing agents that should be dealt with, not the car dealers. The point is this; it is an indictment, the failure of the process and the Customs Service. Do you know you can buy a car from someone and you will be driving on the street and the customs will cease the vehicles, that you didn’t pay actual duty? How did the car get out of the ports? It was not smuggled, it didn’t come through the land borders, why should you be the person to be embarrassed for driving a car you bought with your money because the duty was not paid correctly. That is what is happening at an expanded level going to embarrass car dealers at their shops. It is an indictment on its own, you know, Nigerian is a country where once you are wearing a uniform, you can do anything.
CRFFN said that the N5.9billion in the 2020 budget was for infrastructural development as it will soon commence the collection of Practitioners Operating Fee. What is your reaction to that?
Collection of Practitioners Operating Fee (POF) is not negotiable because CRFFN deserves that they develop Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) both for their use and that of the government. The sharing ratio is between them and the government but what should happen is that when that takes off in a short while, the government should be able to take them out of the budget and allow them fend for themselves. So once they get to that level, the POF starts working, the next thing is to take them out of the budget and I am sure they considered all those things.
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