The sealing of a £746 million financing deal between Nigeria and the United Kingdom during President Bola Tinubu’s recent visit to the UK has raised hopes for the long-overdue refurbishment of Lagos’s major seaports, while simultaneously reigniting longstanding grievances about the neglect of port facilities in the country’s eastern region. The landmark agreement between UK Export Finance, the Nigerian Ports Authority, and the Federal Ministry of Finance will support the expansion and modernisation of the Lagos Port Complex (Apapa Quays) and the Tin Can Island Port Complex, two maritime infrastructures that handle the overwhelming majority of Nigeria’s non-oil cargo traffic.
Maritime stakeholders have broadly welcomed the development, noting that the ports have generated trillions of naira in government revenue over decades and are overdue for significant investment. Abimbola Awoniyi, a maritime executive, observed that while traffic in Apapa has become more manageable in recent years, port activity continues to increase, making expansion a welcome necessity. Edwin Udoye, a freight forwarder, added that with the multiplicity of charges levied by government agencies at the ports, particularly the Nigeria Customs Service, it is only reasonable that revenue from those charges is reinvested in port infrastructure to ensure smooth operations, efficiency, and worker safety.
However, the concentration of investment on Lagos ports has drawn sharp criticism from stakeholders in the eastern region, where facilities in Calabar, Warri, and Port Harcourt remain significantly underutilised despite possessing the capacity to relieve pressure on Lagos and reduce logistics costs for businesses in the South-East and South-South. Frank Ngwu, a professor of strategy, noted that while Egypt operates over 40 seaports and Morocco has 10, Nigeria relies almost exclusively on two major ports despite its extensive coastline. He argued that this infrastructure gap is hindering Nigeria’s ability to fully benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area, as congestion and increased costs erode competitiveness.
Shadrach Onoriode, a former NPA senior staff member, accused the government of being intentional about concentrating port operations in Lagos while allowing eastern ports to lie fallow. He dismissed security and dredging concerns as pretexts, pointing out that crude oil drilling continues in the Niger Delta despite security challenges, and that dredging is a solvable technical problem. Marcel Nkwagu, an entrepreneur and member of the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, expressed frustration that he continues to import goods through Lagos even though Port Harcourt is significantly closer. He argued that the high cost of logistics from Lagos to the east is crushing businesses that could operate more efficiently if eastern ports were functional.
Proponents of a more balanced approach argue that developing ports outside Lagos would not only ease congestion and reduce costs but also create new economic opportunities and distribute developmental gains more equitably. They note that the federal government has shown willingness to support port development through private sector partnerships, as evidenced by the Lekki Deep Seaport, and that similar arrangements could be explored for eastern facilities. The Akwa Ibom Deep Seaport and a proposed deep seaport in Cross River State have both been mooted for years, but have yet to secure the funding or political backing needed to move forward.
Some observers have offered a more pragmatic assessment of the funding dynamics. Dele Badore, a maritime lawyer, noted that the £746 million deal is not a new project but the financing of a redevelopment plan that has been in the works since 2023. He explained that investors naturally gravitate toward the most commercially viable locations, and that Lagos’s ports have proven their bankability over decades. He urged states in the east to make their own investment commitments and safety improvements to attract similar financing, rather than relying solely on federal allocations.
The debate over port development reflects deeper tensions in Nigeria’s political economy. Critics argue that the concentration of critical infrastructure in Lagos perpetuates a development model that starves other regions of the resources needed to compete. Supporters of the current approach counter that Lagos’s ports earned their pre-eminence through decades of commercial activity and that forcing traffic to less efficient ports would raise overall costs for the economy. For now, the £746 million deal moves forward, offering Lagos ports a long-awaited face-lift while leaving unanswered the question of when eastern ports will receive their turn.
