Mr. Lucky Amiwero is a frontline maritime industry stakeholder and also founder of the National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents(NCMDLCA). In this interview with Anozie Egole, he speaks on the challenges in the maritime industry and why Nigeria lost at the recent International Maritime Organization Council elections.
“Border closure is not the best for the country”
How would you appraise the year 2019 in the Nigerian maritime sector?
In 2019, the industry has been so badly hit, there have not been any improvement in the maritime industry and the sector; instead of moving forward it is going backward. So 2019 has been so bad for the maritime sector, if you look at the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) they contribute nothing, it is too bad for an industry that is supposed to generate up to N600 Billion or more in GDP. But when you look at the whole thing, it is shifting negatively and it is not too good for a country like Nigeria. We are losing in every area, regulations are not complied with, and things are not done properly. So, we have a problem with not doing the right thing and these things have to do with the government sometimes and on the other time the people. So that is it, the year 2019 has been so bad in the industry.
In view of that, what are your expectations in the coming year 2020?
The year 2018 was bad, 2019 is bad; what do you want me to expect in 2020, there is no expectations. The same people who have been running the industry are the people who are still there, so what do you expect and they don’t take advices. You write and they won’t act on it, we will just be talking but that it not how governance is being run. It is not the best for the country, when you are looking at the coming year 2020 I don’t know what you are looking at. Look at the roads they are still there, look at the ports no scanners and many things are not working. Look at the conventions we are not complying with them we do things that are not going well with the conventions, most of things we are supposed to do we are not doing them. We have a static system that is actually the devil in the maritime industry, a system that is not moving.
Recently, Nigeria lost the category ‘C’ in the elections at the MO, what is your take on that?
We will continue to lose until we begin to comply with our conventions, we are not complying with them, and we don’t even know most of them. So you go to IMO meetings to play politics, you are not in Nigeria where you play politics. In that place they have to look at your technicalities and look at what makes you a maritime nation. But is Nigeria a maritime nation, in the real sense of it? the answer is No. Because we don’t have ships, we don’t even have national carrier, our cargoes are distributed here and there. So what makes you a maritime nation, yes you have throughputs but who are the people handling your throughputs they are all foreigners, you don’t have a national carrier. The provisions according to the Act are that you are supposed to have a national carrier, but there is none. So nobody is actually involved in the carriage of Nigerian cargoes, technically speaking based on the NIMASA Act. So when you lose to IMO why did you lose, what are you doing in line with IMO conventions? That is where we have problems; you have other people who are complying. The conventions are there; most of them have been signed while most of them are still there going through the National Assembly for it to be ratified so that it can become a law. Most of the conventions we signed are just hanging and if you don’t bring them into the National Assembly for them to be domesticated, it is not a law and it cannot be implemented in the country. So those are the issues and we run a system that is so bogus and we are not focusing much on what we are doing.
There seems to be high rate of abandoned building in Apapa due to the traffic gridlock, what do you have to say about that?
In 2009 the former president, Umar Musa Yar’ adua approved for the road to be constructed; from them till now the road is not yet constructed 10years after and we have 7% of ports development levy. And when you look at those roads they are called ports access roads to the ports because all the ports are within the access roads. When you look at the laws they are there, NPA are supposed to have done that, but I think they are battling with federal might and all the rest of them. We are just suffering and the problems are just that we are losing out in the whole thing, other countries are benefiting from our ignorance and inefficiency. And we are running it like a private business; it is affecting everybody, no employment, nothing. You find out that everything is just going wrong, and what can we do, we can’t do anything. We will keep talking we cannot go and fight the government; desk officers cannot solve the problems. You need to form committees where you bring experts to come and know how to tackle the problems. Destination inspection was what I generated and when I found out that it has been given to Cotecna only, I wrote to government that this is not good and based on the law and some of the thing, you can’t push the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) away because it is not done anywhere in the world. At that time, good a thing we had a listening government who listened and reverse the agreement and brought in some more contractors and gave Cotecna large chunk and three other scanning companies. So you had those systems that worked in 2013 and the system is still just there, but the scanners have all collapsed. Within that time there was no post investment on the scanners, you are supposed to have investment which is destination inspection contract before the contract expires and when the contract expired it is supposed to be transferred to the government, so that the government will benefits from the post investment process. But unfortunately these things were not there because we politicized the whole thing and they have all collapsed. So we have a very terrible system and like we are talking about the houses in Apapa, when you have gridlock, what do you call “gridlock”? It means that it is blocked, permanently blocked, when you want to go to Apapa it takes you days. So many people have relocated and many companies closed down and when you close down it is going to affect everything. It has affected many things when you go there you see empty offices. The issues can only be resolved when experts are called in. When the concession was going on, I was in opposition of it not because it is not good, but it was not properly done, there was no law for the concession. And when there was no law up until now there is still no law for concession and it is still there. If the concession was midwifed professionally, we will not be having the problems we are having today. Concession was done when there was no holding bay, no trailer park, no export seat. So you have the bonded warehouses all of them were all concessioned; every space was concessioned. So all these things that are supposed to be the characteristics of the ports are not there. So you have all the whole spaces taken over by the concessionaires and that is why you have the problems we are having in the ports today.
Some people are saying that the border closure is an indictment on the customs, what do you have to say about that?
The border closure is not a customs issue, it is an issue we don’t know where it is coming from, but we saw that customs is at the forefront. Border closure is normal if it is done properly but the only thing is how it was done and there are some areas the government has not looked into by the provisions of the law and all the rest. So we don’t know who closed the borders whether it is the customs or the National Security Adviser (NSA). But customs by the provision of the law are not authorized to close the border, it is the minister that is supposed to come out with the circular and close the border. So we don’t know if the enabling power was given to them and you don’t close the borders there are other treaties, conventions and protocols that you had signed that has to do with the border, it is a corridor. And there are three legal entry points, seaports, airports and border stations and the border stations is the corridor and we had the corridor agreement with the European Union (EU). And if they are doing those things they are supposed to put a lot of things into consideration. If it is on security issues but when it comes to trade it has negative impact. You are talking about rice; if you want to ban your rice, you ban it and like I said on the border issue you go to what we call mutual administrative assistance. So what the government was supposed to have done was to go to mutual administrative assistance with Togo, and other countries and initiate that process. What has been done now is that we have a closure where we contravened Article 7 and so many other articles. It is going to affect the country internationally; you have to give what is called grace period. The effect may not start today, but it will start tomorrow because it will affect the trust in signing conventions.
Do you think the closure actually contravenes the ETLS?
Well, the closure contravenes not only the ETLS we have two others, like the Common External Tariff and ETLS, those are two different regimes. So what you they are saying is correct, but I don’t know how government took that decision and why they took the decision. If it was on security what they are supposed to have done was to try and remove the shaft from the grain, because it is going to affect our trading partners because most of them may gang up to put us into a very serious mess. It is not the best for the country because when you are a front runner in a protocol or convention; because in ECOWAS conventions Nigeria is a front runner and we have two Francophone countries the rest are Anglophones. And Ghana and Nigeria are front liners, what the country should have done in taking such decisions was to take it from the top by bringing the president, because we have such organogram in the ECOWAS treaty. We have the presidents, ministerial and customs teams; all of them are there. So if they are having problems they are supposed to have taken it to the presidential team where all the presidents will come and look at the issues and resolve it. Look at the MoU, where all of them will sit down. That is what has secured America borders, they didn’t close it but they restrict people coming in. they still see all the things moving in and out. We don’t have scanners.
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