By Danlami Nasir Isah
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), has disclosed that importers will henceforth be able to clear their cargoes out of the Lekki Deep Seaport within two days.
Speaking with journalists against the backdrop of the Lekki Port’s full commencement of commercial operations, the Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko, stated that, unlike two weeks that it takes for cargo clearance at Apapa Port, it will take two days to move cargoes out of Lekki Port.
Bello-Koko further stated that the deep seaport has already started wresting cargoes meant for Nigerian ports from neighbouring countries, including Benin Republic, Togo, and Ghana.
Valuechain reports that in January 2023, the Lekki Deep Seaport, which has been termed as the “game changer” in ports operations in Nigeria and West Africa, was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The first commercial vessel berthed at the nation’s first Deep Seaport on April 1, 2023 with a draft of about 16.5 metres.
In the words of the NPA MD, “I must say it is the first time a government will start construction of a port, finish and commission it before leaving office. As you know, the Lekki Deep Seaport has been in the brain box for over 10 years.
“It wss this administration that came in and gave all the necessary support through the Ministry of Transportation and the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA).
“They have done the test run on all the necessary equipment, they have done their recruitments, people have been training and the vessels have started coming in. At least, we had a vessel that came in to take out empty containers and by April, we expect that the first commercial vessel will start coming.
“So business has started actually in Lekki Deep Sea Port. So, everything is ready and it is going to be automated as we said and all the gaps we observed either in Tincan Island Port or Apapa, whether in terms of scanners, equipment and others, you will find all of them in Lekki.’’
On the “game-changer” status of the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the NPA boss explained that unlike two weeks that it normally takes for cargo clearing at Apapa Port, at Lekki, it would be out in just two days.
Bello-Koko further reiterated that, with the Lekki Deep Sea Port, NPA had been able to wrest cargoes from neighbouring countries back to the country.
His words: “It changes everything. For instance, you are an importer, and you know that going to Apapa, sending in your cargo or importing your cargo through Apapa will take you two weeks, whether because the road is bad, whether because the customs scanning system is limited, or probably the automation is not complete and so on and so forth, it will take you two weeks.
“But if you take it through Lekki, probably in two days, you are out.
“First of all, it is for you to determine who are the importers of these cargoes and if you determine that, you will then ask why they are taking these cargoes to those locations. As I have said earlier, what we simply did was just improve efficiency, and if the ports are efficient nobody would want to send his cargoes to Lome and start dragging it down to Nigeria.’’
On the trans-shipment of cargo, he said the Authority was already working on it, pointing out that neighbouring countries have it but Nigeria currently does not have.
“Neighbouring countries have cargo trans-shipment but we don’t have. So you find that the bigger vessels go to Lome and, then, they use smaller vessels to bring the cargo into Nigeria.”
He however assured that transshipment is exactly what Lekki wants to start doing and they already have a market for it, especially when the necessary cooperation by relevant government agencies has been achieved.