Captain Adamu Biu has been the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council for a few years. He has indeed done very well; at least he says that the Council’s primary constituents, that is, the shippers appreciate the contributions. In this interaction, the Biu, Borno State – born master mariner opens up on the battle with the European cartel; EWATA, the fate of the (struggling to survive) Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding Practice in Nigeria and other sundry issues.
You have been here as the CEO of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council for some years, how will you say that your experience as a retired sailor impacted on your job?
If you are asking for my experience as a sailor and how it has helped me work here or understanding the job here, then I will give you a simple scenario. Here, you have a young man who has been to sea on ships and spent about 27years at sea.. During that period, he has grown from a cadet to a Captain of ships. And what is shipping about, shipping is about carrying goods from one destination to another in all shapes, sizes, and value. Now, such a person comes and he is working for a place like the Nigerian Shippers’ Council. Nigerian Shippers’ Council is supposed to understand and help the cargo owner. The Council is supposed to help promote the interest of the cargo owner. How best can you promote the interest, it is by ensuring that in the transportation of his goods from point of origin to point of destination, he gets value for his money in terms of freight payment, in terms of handling of his cargo and in terms of how his cargo is delivered to him, is it in the same condition it was shipped to when he received the cargo. In the same condition, the same quality, the same quantity, no deterioration, no pilfering, no loss of any kind and he pays the correct freight and he transports it to his warehouse. Nobody understands the movement of cargo better than the sailor who has spent that much time transporting cargo from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. No matter which way you look at it , it has made my job much easier. I did not have to learn any thing at the Nigerian Shippers’ Council; that is the scenario.
The recent strike embarked which was embarked upon by freight forwarders practically undermined the acceptability of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders by its members, what do you think is responsible for this?
That issue was a mixed grill; there are two things that you have to understand about the Council for freight forwarders. Yes, the Council has been inaugurated, but it is not fully off the ground, because they do not have a registrar yet. They do not have offices yet, we just gave them offices in the last two or three months. They do not have grant to take off, they need money to establish their administrative structure and all that. We have just given them funds as directed by government for their take – off and the money is a small amount compare to what they really need. We have given them office space, but it is not furnished, they still do not have means of transportation. So, it would be correct to say that the establishment itself has not taken off, that is one side you have to understand. When the establishment is not off the ground, you do not expect them to perform optimally, that is one. Two, amongst the so call freight forwarders, there is one or two groups of people who have taken the Council to court, to say that the Council of Registered Freight Forwarders is not recognizable, because, according to them elections into the Council was not properly done. And those people who took the Council to court are people who contested the election and lost. We conducted election, and at that election, the returning officer at the election is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association. We had all the agencies and important stakeholders represented. Elections were done, results were announced on the spot, and supervised by the Nigerian Bar Association. Those who thought that it was their birth right to automatically become members unfortunately lost at the elections, so they went to court. The matter, as we speak is still in court. So when the strike came on, some of those who lost in that election spearheaded the strike. Unfortunately, that was the scenario, so the Freight Forwarders Council could hardly do any thing. Indeed, I attended a meeting where the managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority during the strike; the freight forwarders came to discuss ways and means of stopping the strike and let the nation’s economy flow. When some freight forwarders came and saw two or three members of the Council of freight forwarders, they said that they would not be part of the meeting because of the presence of the Council members against whom they have a case. So you can imagine the kind of split there is, but that is being resolved. The case in court will take its course and once the issues are resolved, the freight forwarders Council will take off properly and they will intervene in any such matter in the future. So you now have the two scenarios as to why they were not very active in the case of the recent strike.
By importers and cargo owners, of course
It would be recalled that the Council succeeded in stooping the unwholesome trade practices by members of the defunct Europe West African Trade Agreement (EWATA) on the Western African trade route, but the impact of that fight is yet to be felt when one considers the high freight rate that is still being paid by shippers.
You see, again I think the information you have is not correct. The correct scenario is this; Nigerian Shippers’ Council alone did not fight EWATA as Nigerian Shippers’ Council .Nigerian Shippers’ Council was spearheading a group in the Union of African Shippers’ Councils. I was privileged to be the Chairman of a Committee of the Union of African Shippers’ Councils and it is the Union that started discussions with EWATA to make them come to a round table. Of course, in the process of our discussion, EWATA itself got into trouble with the European Union. And so too many forces were against EWATA, and so EWATA ceased to exist. We chipped in our bit; it is not fair for us to say Nigerian Shippers’ Council did it alone; no, it is not true. We spearheaded it, true, I was privilege to be Chair, yes, but the truth is that the credit should go to the Union of African Shippers’ Councils which gave me the opportunity to chair the Committee that handled EWATA issue.
What is the difference between an Inland Container Depot and a Bonded Terminal?
Well, simple one sentence will give you the difference. An ICD is described as an Inland Container Depot, another name for an ICD is a dry port. What is port, a port is a cargo destination and it has the status of a seaport. The only difference is that it does not have water front and if it does not have water front, you will not have ships go there, but you can have railway linked to an ICD from the seaport. You can have trucks go there from the seaport, you can have air cargo go there from the airport .That is the difference between a dry port and a seaport .The dry port is the ICD Inland Container Depot, container depot because nowadays majority of dry cargo is shipped in containers, otherwise an ICD is simply a dry port. A dry port is a facility where you can destine cargo from your bill of lading. From the point of loading, you can destine your cargo to an ICD. Take for instance, if we have an ICD in Kano or in my village in Biu, somebody who is importing from Japan can say his cargo is to move from Yokohama to Biu. In the bill of lading, it is clearly stated and freight is charged from that point of loading to the point of discharge in Biu; taking care of all the interface, taking care of the sea leg as well as the road or rail leg that finally makes that cargo gets to its destination in the dry port. The owner of the cargo can clear and collect it from the ICD, but that is not the case with the Bonded Terminal. A bonded terminal is only a facility where the customs take cargoes under bond, under customs escort to that facility. This is done for one or two reason, it is either to decongest the port or to take to a place that is convenient to the receiver of the cargo or it is not a destination port. You do not put the bill of lading and say that is your destination, the destination will be the seaport. So, transporting the goods from the seaport to the bonded terminal would have to be escorted physically by Customs.
I am aware that there are moves for the Council to transmute from what it is now to National Transport Commission, do we see the Council becoming more effective in kicking against unwholesome practices when it finally becomes a Commission?
You have to understand the nature and structure of the proposed National Transport Commission; I guess that is what you are talking about. The proposed bill of the National Transport Commission has gone through second reading and it is due for public hearing very shortly. We are privilege to know that it is a private member’s bill in the National Assembly. The National Transport Commission bill is not only meant to cater for interest of shippers at the Nigerian Shippers’ Council as it is today. There are so many other responsibilities that are incorporated in the National Transport Commission bill. The National Transport Commission, in its totality is simply an economic regulator in the transport chain. It would regulate the economic aspect of the maritime transport, road transport, may be not air transport because there is already a body that is doing that .It will not touch on safety and security aspect which is NIMASA’s job, it will not touch on pollution and things like. It will not touch on technical aspect of the maritime industry or the transport industry. Take for instance dredging of channels or waterways, custodianship or if you like ownership of the coastal areas and things like that will not fall within the purview of the Commission. However, there are some interfaces because in all these segments of the transport chain, there is need for an economic regulator. That economic regulator is what the National Transport Commission seeks to be. And of course if you are a regulator, you automatically take care of the commercial and financial interest of all stakeholders in the chain, not necessarily the shipper alone. You make him get remunerated in accordance with the services that are offered, that is my understanding of what the National Transport Commission is going to be as it is being presented to be as distinct from the Nigerian Shippers’ Council as it stands The Shippers’ Council has a small hitch. The hitch is that the Shippers’ Council’s core function is the protection of shippers (cargo owner), although, it covers all facets of transportation because a shipper is different from a ship owner. Of course, many people do not understand this; they think that a ship owner is a shipper. When they say Shippers’ Council a lot of people think we own ship, we are trading and so on and so forth. Who is a shipper?, the cargo owner is a shipper and that cargo whether it is transported by water, or by road, or by air, or by rail or by animals (donkey), we have the responsibility to make sure that who ever is giving that service of moving the shipper’s cargo from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ ensures that the cargo arrives its destination in good time and that the cargo owner gets value for his money, that is all. Actually, we are not restricted to the water front because a shipper is not restricted to the water front. It is only that by chance Nigeria’s trade is about 75 per cent water borne, that is why we are domiciled in Lagos. So, when we transmute, we are going to take on a little more responsibility than we have today. And the bill is giving us powers to sanction erring parties in the chain which powers we do not have at Shippers’ Council and those powers are not to discourage trade, they are not to discourage investments, they are actually safeguard the national economy and encourage best practices, that is what we feel is inherent in the National Transport Commission bill.
What is the value of these ICDs to the Nigerian economy?
Good, I have always given this to whoever wants to hear. We are sited in the city of Lagos today, we know how attractive Lagos is to almost every body in this country and the simple reason is because Lagos happens to be the largest seaport in West Africa; not only in Nigeria, meaning that this is where the business is and why so, because ships come here. That is why we have all the factories that we have in Lagos that is why every industry is domiciled in Lagos. Imagine a situation where you replicate this some where in Sokoto or in Kano. You make it possible for cargo to reach there, industries will spring up, it is just dredging a channel for a ship to move up to Sokoto or Kano where cargo can go there without somebody coming all this way down to the coast and spend days in a hotel; paying bills, get a truck and move back . If you establish it, these industries will automatically spring up, stevedoring outfits will also come up because people will load and off – load these cargoes, just like they load and off load from ships, they also load and off load from wagons, and trains. The person who is travelling from the North to the coast does not have to do that anymore. If the same person is travelling the locality where the ICD is located, be sure that hotels and other auxiliary businesses will also spring up around that area. Where ever there is a cargo destination, businesses always spring around that area. So, it will be advantageous to the hinterland, it will be advantageous to the state where they are localized, it will even be advantageous to our neighbouring countries which are landlocked because you are bringing the port closer to them. The man in Niger Republic does not have to travel all the way to the coast in Lagos or to Cotonou or to Tema. If he get to Funtua, it is closer to Yemen so there is cost saving and this will enhance national economy. What makes Lagos tick? If you remove the ports from Lagos you and I cannot be here, what are we coming to do here, why don’t you go and stay in Badagry or Koko why Lagos, it is because of the ports.
What will you consider as the greatest challenge facing the Nigerian maritime industry and what is the best way out of that problem?
Now, the greatest challenge facing the maritime industry, believe me is the opening up of other ports in this country other than Lagos. That is the greatest challenge, we need to open up the port of Calabar, Port-Harcourt both Onne and the Old port, we need to open up Sapele and Warri ports because our nation has become so big in terms of movement of cargoes such that the ports of Lagos cannot cope anymore .
The militancy in the Niger Delta, won’t it be a hindrance?
The militancy in the Niger Delta hasn’t to come down for people to be encouraged to send their ships there. Today, if you are sending a ship to Port-Harcourt port, the insurance alone is $150,000.00 because they have tagged the axis a war prone zone. We need to open up all our ports so that commerce can move outside Lagos. You will not have this congestion if all our ports are operational. The congestion which we had in the last few months has created a lot of distress to our economy. If the other ports were open and ships were sent there, dredge the channels, bring down youth restiveness in whatever way it can be done and open up the place, then we will see the changes. If you have Calabar, Port-Harcourt, and Warri ports working, then the pressure on Lagos ports will be reduced. When we talk about development, it will also go there and do not forget the fact that a large chunk of the goods that are coming into Lagos ports are bound for the South East. This is the greatest challenge facing the industry today and I am happy to note the honourable minister of transport is laying emphasis on opening up these ports. The man is new but he has caught on so well, he has gone round every port in this country and he has consistently made sure that things are put in place to open up these other ports.
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