When the director general, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Temisan Omatseye, led a delegation of Nigerians to South Korea, the infrastructure gaps identified in the Nigerian maritime sector were huge. They include inadequate modern shipyards, as the biggest shipyard facility in the country currently has 25,000 tons lifting capacity.
Also, there are no ship demolition and recycling facilities in the country despite the large number of wrecks and abandoned ships that litter the nation’s waters and lack of functional container freight stations in strict technical sense despite vast hinterland with cargo commercial metropolis.
ICT enablers are yet to be fully developed in port, shipping and logistics operations in Nigeria; there are no distribution, logistics and maritime industrial parks. Yet, most of the imported goods into West and Central African sub-region come through Nigerian ports. Passenger ferry service is underdeveloped despite large populated communities with the creeks and coastal areas of the Niger Delta that can only be accessed through water mode. While there is only one Maritime Academy in the country at present, therefore, the country is faced with acute shortage of qualified seafarers.
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