Rise of barge business on Lagos waterways | The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News

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Of late, Lagos State waterways have become busier, especially the Apapa corridor. As a result, several new jetties have sprouted up apart from the traditional ones that have been in existence over the years.

So, from FESTAC Town to Mazamaza, Mile 2, Kirikiri, Iddo, Adekunle, and Ajegunle, to mention but a few, jetties have sprung up. In some of the spots, there are clusters of jetties within a location.

Apapa Quays, Nigeria’s first port, established in 1923, has been and remains the country’s main seaport. Due to increasing activities at Apapa Quays, an extension in the form of a new port was established seven kilometres North West of Apapa Quays. That is the Tin-Can Port, which is the second largest after Apapa Quays.

Built to accommodate a maximum of 1,500 trucks daily, Apapa Quays and TinCan are currently over-congested with a daily truckload of 5,000 trucks, more than three times their capacity. This makes it difficult for trucks to clear their goods for import and export on time, leading to a loss of time and perishable goods.

It was as part of bypassing the pains and bottlenecks that have been synonymous with Lagos ports that some stakeholders devised using barges to move containers and cargoes in and out of the ports through Lagos waterways. According to him, the NPA in the past relied completely on cargo evacuation by road, until it realised that moving 100 per cent of imports and exports by road was not efficient, or sustainable.

Stakeholders and different regulatory bodies have continuously encouraged the use of barges while monitoring operators to ensure that international best practices and local regulations are fully complied with.” He revealed that a terminal operator, like APMTho, was the first to bring in barges to move cargoes, but was constrained because their terminal was getting too congested and it started affecting vessels coming to berth.

“After COVID, the economy worldwide dropped, and it equally affected inland waterways, so moving containers through barges dropped, principally because the volume of imports dropped. At the initial stage, we took over the business of haulage from the truckers because bringing in barges helped reduce the cost of moving containers and cargo.

The President of the Barge Operators Association of Nigeria , Mr. Olubunmi Olumekun, also said that increased barge operations on Lagos waterways were due to the congestion of port access roads. Olumekun maintained that there is a huge market for the barge business, and the government can make huge revenue from it, even though it comes from nothing.

 

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