Obi promises to address confusion in ports administration to boost economy

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has pledged to dismantle the confusion in the country’s ports administration and make it work to boost economy.

According to him, the inefficiency in Nigerian ports is because of some people benefiting from the current system, just as he promised to change it to boost the economy and position the maritime industry to compete with ports of Shanghai and Singapore.

The former Anambra State governor made this known, while responding to a question on how he would improve Nigeria’s port infrastructure and service during an appearance alongside his running mate, Dr. Yusuf Baba-Ahmed, on Channels Television’s programme: ‘The People’s Townhall’ on Sunday monitored by our correspondent.

Obi cited Singapore, Shanghai and Rotterdam ports generating revenue for their government’s from their thriving maritime sector.

“20 years ago, the biggest port in terms of operations and the busiest was Singapore. Port of Shanghai and others have come up, even Rotterdam. These things change as quickly as possible.

“The reason we still have inefficiency is because people live on that inefficiency. Nigeria is lucky to have ports all over the place. What is happening to Ibom? Look at the Port Harcourt Ocean Terminal that was started by Shagari, till today, it is still not functioning as it should, same as Warri. There are so many places.

“Everywhere in Nigeria is a port and you just have to open it up, but people deliberately don’t want it because if it opens up, they won’t have the confusion, and that is what is happening. They don’t want to open up the economy where people’s talent and hardwork will match up with opportunities because they will not have anything to steal.

“ We are going to dismantle this confusion and get the country to work. It is simple; I keep saying it is not rocket science. People have to do the right thing, port is not difficult,” he said.

On how he plans to turn things around, the presidential hopeful said he would bring in the private sector to build ports and manage them in collaboration with the government, noting that it is what is happening everywhere in the world.