By Oluyinka Onigbinde
Clearing a standard 20-foot container through Lagos ports currently costs almost twice as much as clearing a similar container through Cotonou port in Benin Republic, Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, has revealed.
Usman, a former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), disclosed this last Thursday in Lagos while delivering the keynote address at the 4th Annual Maritime Lecture of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN), with the theme, “Nigerian Ports: Ports Modernisation, Charges and the Competitiveness Question.”
According to her, figures from the Importers Association of Nigeria indicate that clearing a standard container through Apapa port currently costs between ₦14 million and ₦15 million, while the cost of clearing a similar container through the Port of Cotonou in neighbouring Benin Republic is about half that amount.
She warned that the widening cost disparity could undermine Nigeria’s competitiveness as a regional maritime and logistics hub, as importers increasingly make commercial decisions based on the cost and efficiency of moving their cargo.
“A shipper choosing between those two numbers is not making a patriotic decision, they are making an arithmetic one,” Usman said.
She explained that the high cost of doing business through Nigerian ports could not be attributed to a single charge or institution, stressing that the final cost confronting importers was the cumulative effect of several charges imposed at different stages of the cargo journey.
According to her, these include statutory tariffs, terminal handling charges, shipping-line charges, demurrage and detention, documentation and the fees paid to clearing agents.
“Each layer has a rational owner and a rational justification,” she said.
“Stacked together, they produce a landed cost that increasingly looks irrational against those of our regional neighbours.”
Usman said the country must therefore stop looking at individual port charges in isolation and begin measuring the total logistics cost of moving cargo from the vessel to the factory, warehouse or final market.
She said the cost of moving goods was ultimately what mattered to manufacturers and importers, regardless of how the expenses were classified.
“A manufacturer does not care whether the additional cost is classified as a port charge, storage charge, demurrage, haulage cost, documentation cost or inventory cost,” she said.
“The manufacturer cares about only one thing: what does it cost to move the input from the ship to the factory?”
Usman also cited the issue of Telex Release charges as an example of costs that could potentially be reduced through greater efficiency and regulatory coordination.
She said importers had reported paying about $45 to $50 abroad for Telex Release, before being charged approximately ₦12,500 locally by the same shipping company for what she described as essentially the same service.
She, however, cautioned against reducing the charges debate to accusations of profiteering against terminal operators and shipping companies, acknowledging that operators were themselves facing rising costs arising from inflation, foreign exchange volatility and the expense of maintaining dollar-denominated equipment.
According to her, the objective should not be to freeze charges indefinitely or permit unlimited increases, but to ensure that the cost imposed on port users is justified by the value and quality of service delivered.
She warned that the competitiveness challenge was already having consequences for Nigeria, with some cargo owners considering alternative ports in neighbouring countries where the overall cost of doing business could be lower.
“Every container that clears through Cotonou instead of Lagos is Nigerian trade tax revenue, Nigerian port jobs, and Nigerian logistics-sector growth, quietly subsidising a neighbouring economy instead of our own,” she lamented.
Supporting the argument, President of the Chartered Institute of Transport, Boboye Oteyemi, said Nigeria’s competitiveness challenge could not be solved through port infrastructure alone.
Boboye said while the modernisation of Nigerian ports remained important, the real test of the country’s logistics competitiveness begins after cargo leaves the terminal.
“The real question is: what happens after the vessel has berthed and the container leaves the terminal?” he asked.
He said cargo must be cleared quickly and moved efficiently by road, rail or inland waterways to factories, warehouses and markets at predictable costs.
According to him, “a modern terminal does not, by itself, result in a modern logistics system.”
Boboye said Nigeria must begin to view the port as part of a larger logistics network connecting customs, roads, rail, inland waterways, dry ports, warehouses, industrial clusters and markets.
He also called for deeper digital integration across the cargo clearance chain, arguing that initiatives such as the National Single Window and Port Community System should create a seamless system in which government agencies and private operators can access cargo information without repeatedly requesting the same documents from importers.
“The container should have one digital identity and one traceable journey. That is the future,” he said.
On port charges, Boboye said the debate should also focus on total logistics costs rather than individual tariff lines.
He listed port and terminal charges, customs-related costs, storage, demurrage, documentation, haulage, security, inventory costs and the cost of uncertainty as components of the overall logistics burden confronting businesses.
“Our policy objective should be reducing total cost at the time of moving cargo from origin to destination, not simply reducing one line item on the tariff schedule,” he said.
Boboye further called for greater use of rail and inland waterways for cargo evacuation, arguing that Nigeria’s heavy dependence on roads was contributing to the cost and unpredictability of inland logistics.
He said rail was suitable for high-volume, long-distance cargo, while inland waterways could provide an efficient alternative where commercially viable, alongside dry ports and logistics parks.
He urged policymakers to shift the national conversation “from port modernisation to logistics transformation, from terminals to networks, from documents to data, from dependence to multimodality, and from import bias to export competitiveness.”
Both Usman and Boboye agreed that Nigeria has the market size, coastline, infrastructure investments and strategic location to become a major logistics gateway for West and Central Africa.
However, they stressed that achieving that ambition would require more than expanding terminals or improving vessel handling.
The ultimate measure, they said, should be how quickly, predictably and affordably cargo can move from ship to factory, warehouse, market or international destination.
Boboye said the success of Nigeria’s port reforms should therefore be measured by their impact on the wider economy.
“Ultimately, modern ports do not merely move ships faster; they should help move the Nigerian economy forward,” he said.
