Maritime Agencies
SPEEDY TRIAL OF CASES: Stakeholders At MASPAN/AMANO Summit Caution NDLEA, Other Agencies.
By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and similar regulatory bodies have been asked to change their investigative tactics, speed up and desist from unduly dragging investigations into cases of drugs found on vessels. Delay, it is argued, places at a huge disadvantage ship crew, shipowners and importers aboard vessels suspected to carry drugs and other illicit substances especially when, at the end of the day, they are found not culpable for such transactions.
Interventions by shipping experts unanimously pointed this way in Lagos,Thursday, when shipping and security stakeholders converged at the Maritime Security Providers Association of Nigeria (MASPAN) and Alumni of Maritime Academy of Nigeria Oron (AMANO) summit to discuss “Drugs & Human Smuggling/Trafficking: The Evolving Maritime Security Threats To Ships Seafarers”.
They observed that shipowners lose millions of dollars to vessel delays, legal costs, crew salaries and inconveniences including additional costs on their families during delayed investigation of drug trafficking suspicions.
Several shipowners, the experts observed, have gone into depression and bankruptcy as they battle loss of business opportunities and other inconveniences.
Speaking at the event, Capt Suresh Prabhakar, Director, Operations, Pacific Basin Shipping Ltd, Hong Kong, deplored a situation where the regulatory agencies would detain ships for a long period of time, spend months on investigation only to discover later that the crew, shipowners and even importers do not have a hand in the transactions.
“From February 2021 to July 2024,” he pointed out, “there were 4 bulk carriers laden with sugar from Santos, Brazil, to Lagos where cocaine of quantities varying from 18 to 43 kilograms were discovered onboard each ship by the NDLEA.”
“During the course of the investigations, each ship was delayed for between 4 to 6 months and allowed to sail after owners posted bonds ranging from $2 million to $5 million.”
“On each ship about half the crew members, which is about 10 crew per ship, were detained. The bail amount posted per crew member to allow them to reside in a hotel rather than in a detention facility was $40,000, which totals to $400,000 for 10 crew.
“On two ships, after multiple court hearings crew were released after being detained for about 20 months each. The other two ships’ crew are still under detention in Lagos whilst court hearings are ongoing. The crew have been in Lagos for 34 months and 13 months respectively.
“Such incidents cost ship owners huge amounts of money in lost revenue by way of vessel delays, legal costs, crew salaries, family upkeep and the like. Additionally, when crew members are subjected to such treatment, most responsible owners expend a lot of time and effort in trying to secure their release.”
Cases such as these, he explained, place the shipowner at a disadvantage, adversely impacting his ability to engage in such trades and maintaining business on productive routes.
Prabhakar asked regulatory agencies to be proactive always. Shipowners should be informed when it is proved that the crew aboard a ship are involved in the drug trafficking. He maintained that the shipowners would be ready and willing to hand over the suspects to the authorities, rather than detain the ship indefinitely with other innocent crew members.
“But unfortunately in some countries like here (Nigeria), the NDLEA have been detaining ships for long periods of time, crews for long periods of time and then they have sort of been put through a lot of mental and physical stress. And then many of them don’t want to come back to sea again as a career” he regretted.
In his remarks, Chairman of the occasion, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, condemned the current level of security threat in the maritime sector, particularly as concerns illicit drugs and human trafficking.
He spoke through Heaky Dimowo, the Director, Marine Environment Management, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA.
“These activities are not merely criminal act, they erode our social fabric, destabilize communities and challenge our law enforcement at sea,” the Minister said.
“Moreover, they pose significant risk to the Maritime and Security of seafarers and vessels. Today we must confront the fact that our waters are increasingly viewed as transit route to illicit activities.”
The minister maintained that it was essential that Nigeria developed comprehensive strategies to address these evolving threats by leveraging on technical innovations, enhancing intelligence capabilities and fostering collaboration among critical stakeholders.
“Together, we can develop multifaceted responses that effectively combat these challenges” he concluded.
“On each ship about half the crew members, which is about 10 crew per ship were detained. The bail amount posted per crew member to allow them to reside in a hotel rather than in a detention facility was $40,000, which totals to $400,000 for 10 crew.
“On two ships, after multiple court hearings crew were released after being detained for about 20 months each. The other two ships’ crew are still under detention in Lagos whilst court hearings are ongoing. The crew have been in Lagos for 34 months and 13 months respectively.
“Such incidents cost ship owners huge amounts of money in lost revenue by way of vessel delays, legal costs, crew salaries, family upkeep and the like. Additionally, when crew members are subjected to such treatment, most responsible owners expend a lot of time and effort in trying to secure their release.”
He said cases such as these, adversely impact the ability of shipowners to engage in such trades and several owners and operators are forced to choose alternative trade routes.
Prabhakar appealed to relevant agencies of government, especially the NDLEA to always inform the shipowners once they are sure that the crew are involved in the drug trafficking incident. He maintained that the shipowners would be ready and willing to hand over the suspects to the authories, rather than have the ship detained with other innocent crew members detained, insisting that in 99.99% of the cases there is zero crew members involved.
“But unfortunately in some countries like here, the NDLEA have been detaining ships for long periods of time, crews for long periods of time and then they have sort of been put through a lot of mental and physical stress. And then many of them don’t want to come back to sea again as a career” he disclosed.
Speaking, the Summit Chairman, Emmanuel Maiguwa said the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) sees West Africa as a transit region for narcotics mostly emanating from South America, a development that gave filip to the summit.
“With recent incidents involving merchant ships (excluding cases of drugs concealed in cargo containers) from South America to Nigeria rising to about four within the last two years, this maritime corridor proves to be providing mobility for this illicit activity.
He informed that on the issue of human trafficking, records from Africa Risk Compliance (ARC) show a significant number of incidents where stowaways have been discovered on ships calling Nigerian ports.
While Nigeria may not present specific records linking stowaways to drug smuggling operations, he continued, it is of great concern that drug traffickers could potentially collaborate with stowaway networks. This partnership could lead to a coordinated effort to use stowaways as couriers, moving drugs from West Africa to Europe.
“Both MASPAN and AMANO express strong support for the fight against all forms of trafficking and smuggling, including drugs and humans; we are mainly focused on addressing responses to these crimes as they occur within the maritime corridor.
“We aim to ensure that perpetrators of these crimes are apprehended and fully punished by the law without subjecting the innocent to unnecessary difficulties that are counterproductive to the growth of shipping” he added.
Maritime Agencies
Customs Bans Stemming of Containers of Pharmaceutical Products To Bonded Terminals, Hands Over N9.2bn Illegal Importations To NAFDAC
By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
Going forward, the Nigeria Customs Service has placed an indefinite ban on the stemming of containers of pharmaceutical products to bonded terminals. This is official.
Customs Controller-General, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi announced this in Lagos, Friday, in response to what he referred to as abuses and trade illegalities being perpetrated by offdock facilities.
”We will no longer allow stemming vessels down into offdock facilities. We can allow any other thing but because of the sensitive nature of pharmaceutical products and because of the abuse to which this concession has been subjected in the past, they will only be allowed or cleared in these four designated places: Apapa Port (right inside the port), Onne Port, PTML and at the International Airport. We’ll no longer allow them to be taken into bonded terminals.”
The Controller-General who was in Apapa to hand over 25 containers of unregistered and prohibited pharmaceutical products with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N9.2 billion to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) declared the aim of the restriction. This is to curtail the abuse by bonded terminal operators, many of whom have been implicated in the seizure of fake and unwholesome drugs.
CGC Adeniyi described the seizure of pharmaceutical products as a direct fallout of the strategic Memorandum of Understanding with NAFDAC and the inauguration of the implementation committee between the two bodies in November 2024.
Explaining the Service’s position regarding current licensing fees, he stated that the current licensing fees for bonded terminals in operation stand to be reviewed as they no longer align with current realities, haven been in place for about a decade.
”The increase in the fee of the license has to be such that it will be difficult or impossible for those who are not serious to own and operate a bonded terminal.
”So, we are already in the process of reviewing the license fee. We will carry the stakeholders along and do things that will reflect current situations”.
He acknowledged the role inter-agency collaboration and intelligence-sharing have continued to play in enforcement.
This enhanced cooperation has delivered measurable results in protecting public health and discouraging illicit trade.
”The MOU framework enables Customs and NAFDAC to conduct coordinated operations and joint investigations, systematically tracing illicit pharmaceutical sources and deploying targeted enforcement strategies against criminal networks”.
A rundown of the contents of the
21 forty-foot containers and 4 twenty-foot containers of counterfeit and dangerous pharmaceutical reveals unregistered sexual enhancement drugs like REDSUN and HYEGRA among others.
There are also codeine-containing cough syrups (including CSC brands), antibiotic injections such as oxytetracycline and artesunate, pain relief medications containing diclofenac sodium and paracetamol.
Also included are skin-lightening creams, hip and breast enlargement products and
numerous tablets bearing fake NAFDAC registration numbers. Expired food products, veterinary medications and antimalarial drugs also featured.
“The Nigeria Customs Service, in partnership with NAFDAC and the NDLEA remains uncompromisingly committed to the battle against merchants of death who pursue illicit profits from businesses that destroy lives and communities,” Adeniyi stressed.
“This MOU- facilitated coordination enables swift responses to emerging threats, and I commend the Director-General and her dedicated team whose technical expertise, combined with our enforcement capabilities, has created a formidable barrier against criminal networks seeking to compromise our borders”.
“Under the coordination of the Office of the National Security Adviser, our joint operations have resulted in the seizure of over 200 containers followed by coordinated destruction exercises, with unregistered pharmaceutical products comprising 63.7% of seizure values, highlighting the scale of threats that could have inflicted devastating damage on human lives and our social ecosystem if permitted to infiltrate our markets,” he stated.
Adeniyi who emphasized that the Service has significantly enhanced her intelligence network and technological capabilities to detect and seize unwholesome goods warned all stakeholders including haulage operators, bonded terminal owners, or any other international trade facilitator that anyone implicated in illegality stands to face the full force of the law as there are no sacred cows.
He commended commended officers and men at the Apapa Port Command for being vigilant and professional in their duties.
Maritime Agencies
Lekki Deepsea Port Set To Clinch 500,000 TEUs, Becomes Trans-shipment Hub In West Africa
By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
Yang Xixiong, the Chief Operating Officer, Lekki Port has said the deepsea port which commenced operations in 2023 has come to place Nigeria in her rightful position as a shipping hub that has assumed her rightful position and relevance in regional and global economy.
The CEO who disclosed this in Lagos,Thursday, while rubbing minds with members of the press assured that the new port has stabilized and would, going forward,continue to raise the bar of relevance to international standards.
“We continue to push the envelope, set the bar higher to uphold our position as West Africa’s deepest sea port,” Xixiong announced.
A section of critical facilities at the Lekki Deepsea Port.
“The result of our unrelenting commitment to world-class standards is visible in the gigantic footprints we are putting on the map of maritime trade in Africa, deploying technology, driving operational efficiency, and shaping regional trade,” he added.
Already, Lekki Port has commenced trans-shipment operations to some regional ports in West Africa such as Togo, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
In his intervention, Daniel Odibe, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, who spoke further on the increase in trans-shipment capacity added that recently, Lekki Deepsea Port conducted a trial trans-shipment to Onne Port.
Odibe said, “We had our first trans-shipment operations in 2023, which is the first in the Nigerian economy.
Between January and June, 2025, the port processed 222,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of cargo and has her hands steadily on the plough to jerk up the performance so as to achieve the targetted record of 500,000 TEUs by the end of the year, a development that reflects a growing confidence in the port’s ability to achieve maximum operational capacity as per international standards.
“Before now, countries like Togo, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire used to be the trans-shipment hubs for Nigeria-bound cargoes. You know what that means for our cargo? They spend more time coming to us. They incur more costs because they are double-handled in those trans-shipment hubs, all because Nigeria didn’t have a deep-sea port.
”The story is in our favour right now. We are now talking about international trans-shipment. We are now doing international trans-shipment to other West African countries such as Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Abidjan, Togo and Cotonou.
”Currently, you have ports like Warri, Calabar, Onne, and then we have inland ports like Onitsha and Burutu. Some of these ports, foreign vessels don’t go there because the draft is low. So the idea here is to have cargoes for those ports. That will open up economic opportunities in those areas.
“We did some trials last year with Onne. It had some challenges, but again, it was an eye-opener and we are looking at restarting that again this year in collaboration with the shipping lines and baggage operators.”
On cargo throughput volume, Odibe assured that cargo volumes are now gradually improving steadily despite initial hiccups arising from instability in the rate of the Dollar.
Currently, the port receives between 10-12 vessels every month. The record, he added, is steadily picking up.
“Volumes fell because of Naira depreciation and the removal of fuel subsidy; this caused a setback in our projection. As of 2023, when we started operations, we did 54,289 TEUs, and as of June of this year, we have done 222,000, and we are projecting 500,000 TEUs.”
Odibe also stated that the vessel turnaround time at Lekki Port currently stands at 48 hours as against one hour and 25 minutes for truck turnaround time, while cargo dwell time is 16 days.
Maritime Agencies
MAMAL 2025: MARAN Demands End to War Risk Premium, Set to Expose Maritime Fraud in Gulf of Guinea.
By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
Come August 28, 2025, the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) will host the 3rd edition of her annual Maritime Lecture (MAMAL) at the prestigious Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos.
This year’s lecture will spotlight the ongoing international fraud perpetrated by foreign shipping lines under the guise of “War Risk Premiums” on vessels calling at Nigerian ports, aiming to draw the Federal Government’s urgent attention to the issue.
Speaking on the theme of MAMAL 2025 which is “Addressing the Burden of War Risk Insurance on Nigerian Maritime Trade,”MARAN President, Mr. Godfrey Bivbere, strongly condemned the war risk insurance, describing it as an international fraud burdening the economy of Nigeria and other developing countries in the Gulf of Guinea.
The extra war risk insurance (WRI) levied on Nigeria-bound vessels varies significantly. For instance, a very large crude carrier (VLCC) can incur a WRI surcharge of $445,000 per voyage, while a new container vessel may face a charge of $525,000 per voyage. Beyond this, some shipping companies such as Maersk, have introduced additional fees like a transit disruption surcharge, while others impose a war risk surcharge of $40-$50 per 20-foot container.
MARAN contends that these exorbitant charges are further strangulating Nigeria’s already-strained economy.
Also, despite Nigeria’s Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola recently confirming that Nigeria has not recorded a single pirate incident in the past three years, the imposition of war risk premiums continues unabated.
Oyetola credits this peace in the Gulf of Guinea to the multi-billion naira Deep Blue Project, a robust maritime security initiative spearheaded by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
Despite these commendable efforts by the Federal Government, MARAN is concerned that foreign shipping lines continue to unjustly extract millions of dollars from Nigerian shipowners in the name of War Risk Insurance Premium, even though there are no demonstrable risks in the region.
In March 2025, Dr. Dayo Mobereola, Director General of NIMASA, met with a delegation from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Kristin Skov-Spilling, where he passionately appealed to the international community to acknowledge Nigeria’s significant progress in securing its waters. He emphasized the critical need for a corresponding reduction in war risk insurance costs.
Dr. Mobereola stated, “The Nigerian government has demonstrated a strong commitment to maritime security, leading to nearly zero incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Guinea over the past four years. Despite this, vessels coming to Nigeria continue to pay high war risk premiums, which is unjustifiable given the improved security landscape.”
Speaking further on the upcoming MAMAL Annual Maritime Lecture 2025, MARAN President Godfrey Bivbere asserted that international shipping companies operating in Nigeria have shown “lackadaisical and complacent attitude towards the economic and social wellbeing of Nigeria as a nation.”
He explained that MAMAL 2025 aims to thoroughly examine the perceived threats, realities, and profound implications of persistent Extra War Risk Insurance (EWRI) on Nigeria’s maritime trade and the wider Gulf of Guinea (GoG).
Providing more details about the highly anticipated conference, which has consistently served as a crucial rallying point for all maritime stakeholders due to MARAN’s respected voice, Bivbere added:
”The Summit will also explore issues leading to the classification of the nation’s waters as high-risk zones, roles of classification societies like the Lloyds of London, the roles of core stakeholders like NIMASA, Nigerian Navy and other maritime and security operators.”
According to Bivbere, “The MAMAL 2025 is expected to draw over 500 key stakeholders, including maritime security experts, shipowners, terminal operators, international shipping lines, diplomats, insurers, regulators, and legal experts.”
Customs Bans Stemming of Containers of Pharmaceutical Products To Bonded Terminals, Hands Over N9.2bn Illegal Importations To NAFDAC
Lekki Deepsea Port Set To Clinch 500,000 TEUs, Becomes Trans-shipment Hub In West Africa
MAMAL 2025: MARAN Demands End to War Risk Premium, Set to Expose Maritime Fraud in Gulf of Guinea.
Apapa Customs Revives Rail Haulage of Cargo, Shuts Three Bonded Terminals
SAFETY ON WATER: FG Donates Life Jackets To Ogun State Government, Emphasizes Safety
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NPA Berths Nigerian-Owned Container Vessel,”MV OCEAN DRAGON,” To Boost Incountry and Regional Trade,
NIGERIAN PORTS AUTHORITY BERTHS FIRST WHOLLY NIGERIAN-OWNED CONTAINER VESSEL.
HALF-YEAR REVENUE DISPOSITION: Apapa Customs Hits N1.38Trillion, Confiscates Prohibited Goods Worth Billions.
PORTBIZNESS Celebrates Excellence in Customer Service Delivery, Holds Special Awards Night
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CG Adeniyi Commends Ogun II Command for Massive Revenue Increase.
Container Movement To Seaports: NPA Meets With APM Terminals, Shipping Lines, for Coordination.
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Maritime Agencies3 weeks agoPORTBIZNESS Celebrates Excellence in Customer Service Delivery, Holds Special Awards Night
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Maritime Agencies3 weeks agoKebbi Customs Command Introduces Health Screening, Mandatory Sports To Ensure Work-life Balance
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Maritime Agencies6 days agoApapa Customs Revives Rail Haulage of Cargo, Shuts Three Bonded Terminals
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Maritime Agencies3 days agoCustoms Bans Stemming of Containers of Pharmaceutical Products To Bonded Terminals, Hands Over N9.2bn Illegal Importations To NAFDAC
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Maritime Agencies1 week agoNPA Berths Nigerian-Owned Container Vessel,”MV OCEAN DRAGON,” To Boost Incountry and Regional Trade,
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Maritime Agencies3 days agoLekki Deepsea Port Set To Clinch 500,000 TEUs, Becomes Trans-shipment Hub In West Africa
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Maritime Agencies2 weeks agoHALF-YEAR REVENUE DISPOSITION: Apapa Customs Hits N1.38Trillion, Confiscates Prohibited Goods Worth Billions.
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