I am throwing down a unique challenge to the members of Nigeria’s South South Governor’s Forum. Build a mobile port and rotate its use across your geo-political zone

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Let me start off again by repeating the point that Nigeria is in her current state because of three basic problems - Intellectual laziness, we are not productive enough and our vanity. If all these problems disappeared tomorrow, our GDP would double overnight

[2] We have 853km of Atlantic coastline and only really have one proper functioning port that can take Panamax vessels. We have had since 1960 to build up to a dozen Apapa’s along our coast but alas, our poverty of thinking has not allowed any solution to be found. Over-reliance on the federal government for everything has been one of our biggest banes

[3] Are Nigerians aware that in the run-up to D-Day in 1944, the Allies built two mobile ports which were shipped from Britain to Normandy? These two ports called Mulberry Harbour A and B, allowed 2.5m troops and 4m tonnes of supplies to be delivered to France over 10 months

[4] Built in four pieces and assembled together, these mobile ports took lateral thinking to new levels. Germany had been preparing for an allied attack on an existing port like Calais, Cherbourg or Antwerp, so were taking aback with this innovative thinking. It made all their coastal defence plans obsolete and useless

[5] Looking at Nigeria’s coastal situation today, only Apapa is up to 30 feet deep at the moment and has the capacity to handle 5m twenty foot equivalent units (TEU). Why not build a mobile port that can handle 10m TEU and move it around the south-south as demand requires?

[6] If the cost of dredging Warri, Burukutu, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Ikot-Abasi is too prohibitive, maybe it is time for our South South Governors Forum to start thinking outside the box. Between them, why can’t they commission the construction of a mobile port

[7] All those Onitsha Market traders who constantly lament the high transportation costs associated with transporting goods to and from Lagos should be signed up as partners in this project. Float a holding company and allow them to purchase a stake in it

[8] Maybe call it the Nigerian Mobile Dock Company. If the South South Governors Forum had a 75% stake in the venture and the Onitsha Market Traders Association has a 25% stake in it, over time, over stakeholders can be brought in as the government reduces its presence in the project

[9] If this project kicks off, the mobile dock can even be exported anywhere along the Atlantic coastline. Just imagine the millions of dollars we would make leasing it out to neighbouring African countries

[10] I am challenging the governors of the south-south geo-political zone to debate this matter at their next meeting. Start building this mobile harbour at somewhere like Degema, Buguma or Abonema and radically alter the African shipping market

ayoakinfe@gmail.com