Dr. Segun Musa is the immediate past Murtala Muhammed International Airport chapter chapter chairman of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF). In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde, he spoke on issues inhibiting the growth of Maritime sector in Nigeria and other sundry issues.
*Even giving the presidential task team two years will never solve that problem because that is not the solution and they are relating either to the wrong people or they are seeking the opinion of the wrong people. From the way they have been operating it's obvious that they don't even know the cause of the traffic, talk less of knowing how to resolve it
*The Long term solution is to decentralize the activities within port corridor we have to open up as many as possible terminals and license them
Two months after His Excellency Babajide Sanwo Olu took over the helms of affairs in Lagos state what’s your assessment of his performance in the Maritime Industry, have you seen any development so far?
He has just taken over so far so good he has been thinking of how he can use the agencies to generate revenue but unfortunately the agencies were not meant for revenue generation. They were meant for regulating and adding value to the system and as long as he continues thinking that through the agencies he can increase the Lagos state revenue then he will miss it too. Government is not just about generating revenue, it’s about welfare. If we should X-ray his performance the results are that he has not started working.
So what are your expectations of this present government?
My expectation is that I am looking forward to seeing a government that will target the needs of the people and not the wants of the people because there is different between needs and wants. For the past 20 years government has been focusing on the wants of the people and not the needs.
They saw Lagos as a personal business and thought they can just manage it the way they like, not considering what are the basic needs of the people. If you look at all of the people I've been mentioning from Tinubu to Ambode none of them considered the needs of the people they only think of the wants. And in every modern society wants are being managed either in partnership with the private sector or sold to the private sector, it's the need that is the primary responsibility of the government. So Ambode was like I want to beautify Oshodi to be like Singapore and because of that look at the amount spent on the Oshodi interchange, its wastage ordinarily Oshodi interchange would have been outsource to a private sector. They will even do something more befitting than that and will run it and generate revenue and government will also generate revenue from that. So all the millions that has been channeled into that capital intensive projects could have been channel into health security and so many other sectors that we can develop and also generate revenue from.
Lets me narrow it down to the maritime sector what are your expectations, do you think anyone of them as done anything pertaining to the development of maritime sector in Nigeria?
Yes they did, they destroyed the maritime sector they never knew maritime sector is not only limited to the Federal Government to generate revenue, they underestimated the kind of revenue that the state can even generate from the maritime sector. They were so myopic in thinking that collecting land parking fee from truck owners and vehicles owner's is the only revenue source through maritime.
They were so myopic that they don't know they can also run a port on their own they don't even know the value of aquatic potential within their corridor. So rather than improving they destroyed the maritime sector and I will itemize one by one how they destroyed the sector.
When they introduced the parking charges they approached me because then I was the chairman of NAGAFF at the Airport because they wanted to start collecting from the airport too but I stopped them single handedly. They reported to the commissioner and I met the commissioner I said no it's not happening here only God knows what happened at Apapa before they allowed them to start collecting it but if were to be in Apapa I will also stop them. Even when some consultant met with the NCAA and they said they want to be collecting advisory note from the airline at 1$, 1 cent at the airport I stopped it in conjunction with other airlines owners. After failing at the airport, they ran to seaport they introduced it and they started collecting it.
You see the essence of government is not just revenue generation though it's one of the core functions but the major function is the welfare of the people. If the government is thinking about personal welfare rather than public welfare then there is a disconnect. So when they started collecting at the sea port a lot of people were like at least we are paying this government we can park along the road after all they know we are paying them so they stopped seeing them as a regulator but as revenue collectors.
So they had the kind of mindset that what are we paying them for, if we can't park on the road?. So the government initiated and encouraged road side parking because of that nonsense money they are collecting from them. And that was the limitation that has brought us to where we are, look at the way trucks park on the bridges and on the road around Apapa and the Tin Can Island ports causing chaos and making the port inaccessible.
How will you rate the performance of the task team since they took over traffic control at Apapa?
Giving them two years will never solve that problem because that is not the solution and they are relating either to the wrong people or they are seeking the opinion of the wrong people. From the way they have been operating it's obvious that they don't even know the cause of the traffic, talk less of knowing how to resolve it.
During my debates as a gubernatorial candidate I spoke at length on how we got to where we are I also explained the situation we are passing through and I also proffer solutions. I will advised them to go to media to see the solutions I offered, we have the long term and short term solutions.
What were the solutions you listed?
The Long term solution is to decentralize the activities within ports corridors we have to open up as many terminals as possible and license them. Also for every corridor with a terminal the economy of that terminal will boost so it's going to create job for the Federal, state and local government. There were many other things I listed.
Recently President Buhari signed the African Continental Free Trade agreement, are you worried that the agreement might affect us as a nation?
Nigeria has nothing to benefit from the agreement, because this will kind of turn the country to a dumping ground, and if you ask me, what does Nigeria have to export? Nothing, we don’t have anything to export, and more so our port are very expensive than other neighboring port. So what this means is that importers with designated cargoes for Nigeria will rather choose to clear their cargoes in neighboring port like Ghana and then transport it into the country. So by that agreement government will be losing revenue through diversion of cargoes to neighboring ports.
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