70 unit Nissan buses donated for tricycle operators in Akwa Ibom State, recently.

Maritime activities closed last Friday with a Maritime Lawyer, Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), urging the Federal Government to device a strong port administration, to reduce cargo diversion to neighbouring ports.
Agbakoba, Principal Partner, Olisa Agbakoba Legal (OAL), made the plea in an interview with newsmen in Lagos.
He expressed concern about a situation where a large number of goods coming into the country were smuggled in.
“Eighty per cent of cars coming into Nigeria come through Cotonou and they are brought here; but if they are brought directly, these would create jobs.
“Benin Republic has a well-developed Ports and Harbour regime that gives the nation 30 to 40 per cent of its national incomes.
“Yet all the ocean-going vessels that call at Benin Republic are then trans-shipped into Nigeria.
“If people know that they can ship their things easily, the port business will grow. We are giving our maritime business to 17 other countries in West Central Africa,” he told The Tide source.
Agbakoba, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), expressed concern about the incursion of indigenous coastal trade (Cabotage) by foreign ships, saying that this would hinder job opportunities for Nigerians.
“In Cabotage, I started shouting that foreign vessels in our waters were going to 10,000 and Nigerians do not have anything, how do we get jobs?
“If the maritime sector is properly harnessed, it is a very strong source of alternative revenue. The maritime lawyer also noted that the nation was losing huge amounts of money due to lack of a law like the Ports and Harbour Bill, in managing the ports.
“The Ports and Harbour Bill has not been passed and without the bill, how can you talk about ocean and sea-going vessels or ports.
“The money we are losing from the absence of a law to manage our ports is incredible,” he said.
In the week under review, Mrs Jean Chiazor-Anishere, President, Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA) Nigeria, lamented that there were no enough indigenous ship owners to benefit from the Local Content Act.
“Nigerians are not seeing the benefits as fast as they want to see it because we do not have enough ship owners who will benefit from the Local Content Act.”
“Of the very few ship owners we have, how many of them have supply vessels?
“How many of them have oil tankers and are looking at huge contracts?,” she noted.
“We have to change our mindset but the Federal Government too has to assist in terms of financing,” Chiazor-Anishere told reporters.
She urged the Federal Government to establish a maritime bank, to enable maritime operators to access loans on a single-digit platform.
Chiazor-Anishere also said that the maritime bank would provide avenues for job opportunities, as ship owners would have loans to procure more ships.
Also, during the week, a 21-member steering committee was inaugurated under the auspices of the Port Consultative Council (PCC), to draw an agenda for deliberation on the revival of the nation’s port industry.
At the inauguration in Lagos, Chief Kunle Folarin, Chairman, Port Consultative Council (PCC), said the committee would facilitate the “Roadmap and Modules” for the port industry, in the next four years.
“The ultimate goal of your assignment is to provide instruments that will guide and shape the Roundtable of a wider regime of participants,” he told the committee members.
“Members of the Roundtable will design the Roadmap that will regain the hope and aspirations of the maritime sector,” Folarin said.
According to him, the Roadmap and Modules will serve as the pillars for the policies, legal framework and economic targets that will propel the maritime sector and the port industry.
“We are all aware of the challenges we have faced in the maritime sector in the last two decades; the decline and the decay of both operational modes and infrastructure in the port industry.
“There is no time more appropriate than now to address this situation and work toward the re-engineering of the entire sector to be competitive and productive,” the maritime expert added.