By Abdulwasiu Hassan
Chidi Ebere, a Nigerian businessman, isn't as worried about his consignment from India traversing the seas as he is about the spike in haulage costs once these goods safely enter the country and journey from Lagos to his base in Abia.
"The difference in the cost of shipping from Mumbai in India to Lagos, and after that to Abia in the east, is vast. It's terrible having to pay that much for domestic haulage," he tells TRT Afrika.
Mumbai to Lagos by sea is 8,371 nautical miles, or 15,504 km, while Lagos to Abia is only 586 km. So, why would shipping from Mumbai to Lagos, more than 26 times the distance between Lagos and Abia, be cheaper?
Ebere says freight movement within Nigeria is a bugbear businesses must routinely deal with. "You hire a truck in Apapa (Lagos) to carry your container out of the wharf, and they will charge you at least N300,000 (US $399)," he says.
"That's because there is no road. It takes at least a week before the truck gets to the container." Ebere still needs to spend approximately another N400,000 to send the cargo to the southeastern part of the country, where his business is based.
"So, it costs almost a million naira to take a container from the Apapa port to Abia. In contrast, you spend N800,000 to bring it from Mumbai to Apapa in Lagos," he says.
He is one of many Nigerian business owners having to contend with the unique challenges of haulage within the country.
Soremekun Rotimi Joseph, an importer running his business in Lagos, says it costs him $350 to move a 40-foot container to his base in the city.
Besides haulage charges within Lagos, the delay in clearing goods and "poor interconnectivity between customs, terminal operators and the shipping company" affect his business.
Railroad antidote
One of the reasons the Nigerian government is trying to promote the use of rail in freight movement from Lagos to the hinterland is to reduce the cost of logistics.
Nigeria's minister of transportation, Sa'idu Ahmed Alkali, announced recently that the country would soon start using its narrow-gauge rail to send freight from its commercial capital to Kano – another business hub in the north of the country.
The narrow-gauge rail network constructed by the British has seen better days, which is one of the reasons the country started laying standard-gauge rail tracks from Lagos to Kano in 2017.
The standard-gauge line is now operational from Lagos to Ibadan. Alkali says the narrow-gauge route from Lagos to Kano has also been fixed and that the government would acquire locomotives and wagons to move containers from Apapa to Kano.
Not a new idea
Stakeholders in the industry are not entirely impressed with the government's effort, pointing out that this isn't the first time the idea of using rail for haulage has been mooted.
"It's just an announcement for now," Mukhtar Danasabe Yusuf, a clearing agent, tells TRT Afrika.
He would rather wait for "the modalities and operational procedures" to be finalised before getting his hopes up.
Ebere shares Mukhtar's sentiment. "Assuming you want to send perishable goods, we have a warehouse only at Apapa in Lagos. So, how does the system in Ibadan work?" he wonders.
Perishable items can always go bad during a prolonged power outage, even at the port's storage facility. "In any case, the storage facilities are only in the seaports and airports. So, I think claiming to have created a system beyond that without anything tangible to show is just vague," says Ebere.
As businesses wait for the government to fine-tune the modalities for using rail for haulage, Mukhtar realises that the challenges of moving cargo by road remain for importers and exporters.
"If you are to access any of the Nigerian ports from the northern parts of the country by road, it will take you not less than four to five days because of the current state of the roads," he rues.
Damper for exports
Hordes of middle-class Nigerians are emigrating for better opportunities abroad, increasing the prospects for exporting local foods to satiate the homesick diaspora.
"The rise in export of Nigerian produce is just as massive as that of imports from India, China, Türkiye Türkiye and the US. This is due to the rise in the number of Nigerians emigrating overseas," says Mukhtar.
The contribution of such exports to the economy is, however, limited by the logistical bottlenecks within the country.
Clearing agents like Mukhtar say the time and effort needed to complete the necessary export documentation is discouraging and expensive
"Also, the condition of the road network from the northern parts of the country to the ports needs to improve drastically for businesses to be viable," he says.
Nigerian exporters and importers hope the government finds a way to surmount these logistical obstacles so that local businesses can access the opportunities associated with free trade.
