President Bola Tinubu recently rang changes at the leadership of the Nigerian Ports Authority, replacing the former MD, Mohammed Bello-Koko with Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho. In this report, TOLA ADENUBI looks at the task that lies ahead of the new NPA helmsman. PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently announced a change of leadership at the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), confirming a former National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member who had stint at the NPA in 1992 as substantive Managing Director of the agency.
With over 25 years in Maritime Technology, International Transport, and Port Management, Abubakar Dantsoho is known for his analytical, data-driven approach and versatility as a team player.
The new NPA MD holds a Ph.D. in Maritime Technology from Liverpool John Moores University, UK (2015), an MSc in International Transport from Cardiff University, UK (1999), and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria (1992), making President Tinubu’s appointment of a new MD a round peg in a round hole.
The new NPA MD also holds membership of various professional bodies including the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, the Chartered Institute of Transport, the Institute of Logistics and Transport of Nigeria, the Nigerian Institute of Shipping, the Nigerian Institute of Management and the Nautical Institute, UK.
TASKS AHEAD
Having served as Chief of Staff to the immediate past Minister of Transport, Muazu Jaji Sambo, and also served as NPA Port Manager at Onne Port; NPA Principal Manager of Tariff and Billing; and as Assistant General Manager at NPA, Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho surely must already know where his work is cut out. Below are some of the tasks waiting for the new NPA MD as he resumes:
INCREASING REVENUE
Recall that the NPA, despite headwinds that characterized the year 2023, raked in unprecedented revenue generation and remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federation, with revenues steadily growing from N361 billion in 2022 to N501 billion as of December 2023, and remittances increasing from N93.4 billion in 2022 to N131.2 billion by year-end 2023.
With the appointment of a thorough bred insider as NPA MD, the agency is expected to surpass the 2023 N501bn revenue haul by December of 2024.
SINGLE WINDOW
In April 2024, President Bola Tinubu inaugurated the steering committee of the National Single Window (NSW) project to boost trade in Nigeria.
With agencies of government working at cross purposes in Nigerian ports system, the Single Window initiative is expected to improve regional integration and trade efficiency, making it a crucial step towards Nigeria’s economic advancement.
Notable among the issues the Single Window project is expected to eradicate is the human contact imbroglio which breeds corruption at Nigerian ports.
In its latest report for 2023, the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) revealed that corruption in Nigeria’s maritime industry added about 15 percent to the cost of importing food and bulk products into the country. The report also revealed that corruption also added more than $178,000 to the cost of a shipment of petrol and $147,000 to per shipment of grain and other food items, which represents about one to two percent to the retail prices paid by customers for grain and petrol.
The report details the results of a study developed by socio-economic impact assessment firm QBIS, which applies a dollar value to direct and indirect costs of maritime corruption across the private sector, government, and society in Nigeria.
With a thoroughbred maritime professional now at the helms of affairs of the NPA, the coming to reality of the Nigeria’s Single Window project which will end human contact and subsequently eradicate corruption at Nigerian ports, is expected to finally come to fruition.
ACCESS ROAD SUSTAINANCE
The NPA, in collaboration with the Lagos State Government and other stakeholders, has successfully wiped off the perennial traffic gridlock along the Apapa-Oshodi expressway and the Ijora bridge. The Apapa-Oshodi expressway and the Ijora bridge are the two major routes that lead into the ports and have been bedeviled by traffic gridlock for years before the recent intervention led by the NPA in collaboration with other sister agencies of government.
The nation’s ease of doing business ranking depends on the accessibility of its ports, and if Nigeria must improve its ranking, the ports access roads must remain devoid of impediments that slows down trade. With the clogging of the port access roads by trucks and other articulated vehicles, the number of extortion points (illegal checkpoints) have skyrocketed with importers paying through their noses to haul their cargoes in and out of the ports.
With a change of guard at the NPA, the agency will be expected to go a step further by sustaining the free access roads leading into the ports, thereby further improving on the nations ease of doing business ranking.
PORT REHABILITATION
The new NPA MD is expected to deliver seamlessly on the planned $1bn port rehabilitation project having been involved in significant consultancy studies including a 25-year Ports Development Masterplan by Crown Agent, UK, and World Bank projects on port concession assessment and private sector participation in Lagos’ integrated transport system.
The rehabilitation of the Apapa and Tin-Can Ports is long overdue as these ports were built very long ago and the volume of cargoes coming into the country has far exceeded the capacity of what these ports can handle. The rehabilitation efforts are expected to enhance the physical infrastructure of the nation’s busiest ports of Apapa and Tin-Can ports to accommodate vessels of all sizes and increase draft by up to 14 meters.
Recall that the new NPA MD is a recipient of the 25-year long service merit award in 2019 and a letter of commendation for successfully berthing the EGINA FPSO Ship in Nigerian territorial waters in 2018.
Dantsoho has also represented Nigeria at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London in 2010 and attended the World Ports Conference of the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) in Busan, South Korea in 2011.
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