With just a few weeks into year 2016 there
are doubts that the proposed Badagry mega-port
slated to take off in 2016 will still see the light of
day.
The multi-million dollar facility is the
brainchild of APM Terminals in conjunction with
consortium partners who chose it to be sited in
the ancient city of Badagry, Lagos State.
Ever
since the proposal was made in 2012, nothing
again has been heard of the project. RAY
UGOCHUKWU of NEWSWATCH NEWSPAPERS reports.
A mega-port like the proposed one for Badagry,
Lagos, is usually a sophisticated and complex
port environment with different infrastructural
facilities for many businesses. These include
multiplicity of berths, industries, airstrips or
heliports for landing and take-off of aircrafts,
rails and truck terminals, among others. In a
nutshell, such a facility is best described as
ports and industrial estates rolled into one.
Port as NAGAFF dream
The first group to advocate for the
establishment of a deep seaport in the Badagry
area of Lagos State was the National
Association of Government Approved Freight
Forwarders (NAGAFF) some seven years back.
Then, the association had considered the vast
population of the country standing at over 150
million people, which depends mainly on goods
from abroad of which over 90 per cent is
shipped in through the sea. Apart from such a
facility helping to curb congestion at the
existing few conventional ports, cost of doing
business in such a place would be competitive
considering the fact that it would be a natural
port that would require little or no dredging.
As if hearkening to the yearnings of NAGAFF,
some groups have come up with the Lekki Free
Zone in Lagos that includes a deep seaport,
the Ibaka deep seaport in Akwa Ibom State,
the Olokola deep sea port in Ogun/Ondo states,
among others. All these proposals are
expected to be executed under the public
private partnership (PPP) arrangement.
APM Terminals with gauntlet
In all these, the most remarkable is the
Badagry Mega-port, which the Danish shipping
giant, APM Terminals along with its consortium
partners, is planning to establish. It has even
gone ahead to fix a date for the take-off of the
first phase of the project in 2016. For the
company, it is part of its greenfield mega-port
project development in Nigeria.
The project, to be married with a Free Trade
Zone at Badagry, 55 kilometres (km) (34 miles)
west of Apapa and the Port of Lagos on the
Republic of Benin-Lagos Expressway, will be
the first of its kind in Africa. At full build-out,
the deep-water full-service port would have
seven kilometres (km) of quay length and 1,000
hectares (2,470 acres) of dedicated yard.
The complex will include state-of-the-art
facilities for container, bulk, liquid bulk, Roll-On
Roll-Off (Ro/Ro) and general cargo as well as
oil and gas operations support, and a barge
terminals. Plans for the adjoining Badagry Free
Trade Zone will include a power plant, oil
refinery, industrial park and warehousing and
Inland Container Depot (ICD) functions.
APM Terminals Africa-Middle East Regional
CEO, Peder Sondergaard, in one of his visits to
Nigeria in 2012, summarised the vision.
“We are actively working with state and federal
governments on the permission process”. “The
Nigerian Ports Authority, Lagos State and the
Nigerian Federal Government have been
supportive and positive”, he had said. Then
Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, had
cited the proposed Badagry Port project as an
example of a public-private partnership
development, which would help to address
congestion.
In addition, he said it would establish Nigeria
as a maritime trading hub for West and Central
Africa. The Benin-Lagos Expressway is
currently being upgraded to a 10-lane highway
which will facilitate cargo movements to and
from inland destinations in the region.
Identities of project promoters
The promoters of the project, APM Terminals,
is currently one of the largest port and terminal
operators in Africa and in West Africa in
particular, where APM Terminals Global
Terminal Network include nine facilities in eight
West African nations, including Apapa
Container Terminal and the West Africa
Container Terminal in Onne, Rivers State. APM
Terminals Apapa, which assumed operations at
Lagos Apapa Container Terminal in 2006, is
now the busiest of such facilities in West
Africa.
Future cargo estimates
Industry analysts have predicted that Nigerian
container volume, which totaled 1.4 million
TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in 2011,
would outstrip existing port capacity by 2017.
At present, approximately 85 per cent of all
Nigerian non-oil cargo passes through the ports
of Lagos.
Over the next three decades, Nigeria’s annual
container traffic is expected to grow to 10
million TEUs. With 170 million people, Nigeria is
the largest country in Africa by population, and
the sventh largest worldwide. By 2050, the UN
has forecast that Nigeria’s population will have
risen to 289 million, following only China, India,
the USA and Pakistan in global population
ranking.
Lagos is the second largest city in Africa (after
Cairo) with a population of 10.2 million, and is
home to an estimated 60 per cent of Nigerian
manufacturing outfits. The Nigerian economy,
also the second largest in sub-Saharan Africa
after South Africa, driven by oil exports, has
been forecast by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) to expand by 7.1 per cent in 2012
and 6.7 per cent in 2013.
Support from authorities
Meanwhile, both the Nigerian Ports Authority
(NPA) and the Lagos State government have
expressed their support for the multi-billion
naira project.
Interestingly, soon the perennial traffic hiccup
associated with the Badagry – Mile Two route
especially around the Okokomaiko area, would
soon be a thing of the past. This is because of
the massive road reconstruction embarked
upon by the state government that would see
the highway transformed into a 5-carriage way
for each lane. In addition to the expanded road,
there would be train facilities for both cargo
and passenger movements on both sides of the
highway. This would no doubt enhance the
lifting of cargo from the mega-port.
Advantages of the mega-port
When completed, the facility would boost inter
port competition as its counterparts in the
Apapa area would not want to be run out of
business, hence they would improve on their
services to retain or attract more customers. It
is expected that cost of doing business in the
mega-port would be at its lowest ebb since
much money would not be wasted on constant
channels dredging being a natural port as is
the case with others.
Also, if the economy of scale with which the
port would base its operations is strictly
applied, cost of transactions would definitely
come down to discourage smuggling through
the numerous unapproved routes within and
around Seme. This is because all the factors
that have encouraged the illicit business, would
have been elimated.
This would engender economic boom for both
the state and the country as a whole.
Employment generation potentials of such a
complex cannot be over emphasised as
thousands of jobs would be created in port
operations and ancillary services.
Again, with the siting of refinery in the
complex, availability of petroleum products in
Lagos and environs would be guaranteed
thereby eliminating the constant fuel shortages
usually exprienced by residents.
Envisaged challenges
One major challenge the complex poses if not
adequately regulated, would be that of short-
changing of Nigerians by foreigners as being
witnessed in the concessioned terminals of the
ports. The pre-concessioned thinking envisaged
gains that have been wiped out by highthe cost
of clearing of goods at most of the terminals
where there is no competition. This has made
it imperative for the institution of a
Commercial Regulator that will oversee the
business operations in all ports to ensure that
shippers are not ripped off.
Another setback for the luadable initiative is
the absence of transport intermodalism in the
country. A system that depends almost entirely
on road mode is not the best. It would mean
that in the absence of water and rail modes, all
cargoes emanting from the mega port would
have to rely on the dilapidated Nigerian roads
to get to their destinations. This is a huge
minus to a great effort. It is hoped that the
Federal Government’s desire to resuscitate the
rail system would come to fruition before 2016
when the project’s first phase would have
commenced.
Disturbing silence from promoters
Despite the seeming challenges the project
may face if not properly handled, observers
believe that the advantages far out-weigh the
disadvantages, meaning that the project is
worth the while.
However, with the proposed 2016 take-off date
of the first phase of the project almost around
the corner, with the promoters showing no sign
to commence action, the enthusiasm the
proposal elicited is whittling down. Industry
watchers had expected physical action on
ground at the site many months back from the
promoters.
Attempts to reach the lead partner of the
consortium, APM Terminals, were not
successful as the leadership could not be
accessed for comments. However, a source at
the Apapa office of the company that would
not want its name in prints, told our
correspondent that the project was still very
much on course, adding that the ‘ground’ work
was on. It made it known that for a huge
project of such a magnitude that involved a lot
of international interests, much consultancy
works and feasibility studies were required
before actual construction could commence.
Conclusion
Industry watchers have advised that all hands
from the state, Federal Government, the
community and all, should be on deck to get
the mega-port dream actualised considering its
huge benefits to the country. No words have
been heard from the facilitators, APM
Terminals, as to the challenges that have
stalled the commencement of initiative.
Industry watchers are all ears to be intimated
of such.
They however, add that with such a facility in
this part of the sub-region, Nigeria would
naturally be the shipping and economic hub it
has been longing for. They have therefore
warned that allowing the project to slip away
from Nigeria through acts of omission or
commission, would spell doom for the
economic interest of the most populous black
nation in the world.
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