The Nigerian government has opened a game-changing seaport as it looks to ease congestion at the country’s ports.
Nigeria unveiled a billion-dollar, Chinese-built deep seaport in Lagos, which will help it become an African hub for trans shipment, handling cargoes in transit for other destinations.
Opened by President Muhammadu Buhari earlier this week, he has made building infrastructure a key pillar of his government’s economic policy.
Buhari also hopes the new seaport will help his governing party win votes during next month’s presidential election.
BusinessTech Africa understands that the new port, built at a reported $1.5bn, is one of the largest in West Africa.
Al Jazeera reports that many of the West African nation’s seaports were inherited from the British colonial administration and are no longer functional or operate below capacity.
As things stand, most commercial activity goes through the two in Lagos and two others in and around Port Harcourt, the nation’s oil capital, thus resulting in steady gridlock and logistics issues for imports and exports.
Speaking to a newspaper, Punch, Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said “the size of vessels that will be coming here could be up to four times the size of vessels that currently berth at Tin Can and Apapa Ports [Lagos’s existing ports].”
The new Lekki Deep Sea Port is 75 percent owned by the China Harbour Engineering Company and Singapore’s Tolaram Group, with the balance shared between the Lagos state government and the Nigerian Ports Authority.
“This is a transformative project, a game changer project. This project could create at least 200,000 jobs,” Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria Cui Jianchun told Reuters.
In addition, the Chinese government is among the largest bilateral lenders to Nigeria and has funded rail, roads and power stations among others.
