SEREC report says ports turn to channel of national loss, demands reform
Systemic maritime inefficiencies and the extraction of national wealth through poorly governed export systems, weak industrial linkages, entrenched cartels, leakages, trade distortions, policy inconsistencies and resource exploitation by external opportunism and internal complicity are costing Nigeria over $10 billion yearly, according to a report by the Sea Empowerment and Research Centre (SEREC).

The newly released report, made available to The Guardian yesterday, noted that Nigeria’s maritime sector, designed as the engine room of trade and economic expansion, has increasingly become a critical channel for value erosion, while the ports have evolved into pipelines of economic loss.

The report, titled “Port of Plenty, Pipelines of Loss: A National Reawakening Call on Maritime-Enabled Resource Leakages,” and signed by the Head of Research, SEREC, Dr Eugene Nweke, presented a critique of how the country’s maritime sector had evolved from engines of growth into conduits for untracked resource extraction and capital flight.

SEREC noted that despite Nigeria’s yearly cargo throughput exceeding 1.5 billion metric tonnes, including crude oil exports, non-oil exports still accounted for less than 10 per cent of total export earnings.

Central to the report is the issue of trade mis-invoicing and under-valuation, with Nigeria estimated to be losing between $5 billion and $8 billion in revenue yearly due to under-declaration, misclassification and poor documentation of exports, particularly in the solid minerals.

SEREC highlighted that despite abundant deposits of iron ore, gypsum, other solid minerals and crude oil reserves, the country continued to import refined petroleum products and finished goods at high cost, while the steel industry struggles.

According to the report’s maritime perspective, this has created a cycle in which raw materials are exported at low value, while finished goods are imported at high cost, leading to an estimated $15 billion to $20 billion yearly opportunity losses due to a lack of value addition.

SEREC said the practices also resulted in weakened foreign exchange inflows, distorted national trade data and deprived the government of critical revenue.

The report noted that the situation was exacerbated by weak institutional oversight in Nigeria’s engagements with foreign partners and extractive vulnerabilities, including industrial economies such as China.

SEREC pointed to opaque resource-backed financing structures, weak monitoring of export volumes and valuation, domestic institutional fragility and limited enforcement of global best practices as critical vulnerabilities.

The report describes Nigeria’s ports as exit corridors for raw resource extraction and entry gateways for refined imports, a dual role that reinforces trade imbalances, industrial stagnation and rising cost of living.

SEREC further identified multiple institutional and structural failures, including fragmented digital systems across port, customs and shipping operations, absence of real-time cargo visibility and persistent reliance on manual processes.