Nigeria’s $9bn Freight Loss Exposes Shipping Failure

Nigeria loses an estimated $8bn to $9bn a year in freight earnings to foreign-owned shipping companies, Captain Ladi Olubowale, immediate past president of the Africa Shipowners Association, said, describing the drain as evidence that Africa’s largest economy has not converted its fleet into a carrier that trades under its own flag.

Olubowale, who is also group managing director of Seamate Maritime Services Limited, spoke after President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone launched the Sierra Leone Ocean Shipping Company (SLOSCo). According to the Leadership report of his remarks, the launch should be read in Abuja as a comparison, not a compliment.

The gap between the two countries is measurable. Sierra Leone moved from statute to company. Nigeria has moved from announcement to announcement.

What Nigeria’s $9bn Freight Loss Actually Measures

The $8bn to $9bn figure is an industry estimate, not an audited customs or central bank number, and Olubowale did not set out a methodology for it in the reported remarks. The harder figures sit underneath it.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest ship-owning nation by vessel count, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, with 291 vessels in its indigenous fleet. Yet Nigerian-owned vessels account for only slightly more than half of one per cent of the global merchant fleet measured by value. A large count of small ships is not the same as capacity to carry the country’s trade.

Nigeria once had that capacity. Olubowale recalled the Nigerian National Shipping Line, which ran about 30 ocean-going vessels and trained a generation of seafarers. Its collapse took freight earnings, jobs and sea-going expertise with it, and no successor has replaced it.

Sierra Leone’s Route From Law To Vessel

The SLOSCo sequence is short enough to audit. Parliament passed the Sierra Leone National Shipping Agency Act in 2025, converting the national shipping company established in 1972 into an agency authorised to act as the national carrier for international trade. Parliament then ratified a joint venture agreement with China’s Zhejiang Xiehai Group in August 2026, and the company was launched.

Olubowale credited Minister of Transport and Aviation Ambassador Alhaji Fanday Turay, the leadership and staff of the Sierra Leone National Shipping Agency, and the MPs who ratified the agreement. He also attached a warning to the ceremony.

“In my years in African shipping, including as President of the Africa Shipowners Association, I have watched many national shipping ventures launched with ceremony. Some became fleets. Most became footnotes,” he said.

Nigeria’s own record supports the caution. In April 2026, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, announced progress towards establishing a national carrier, with reported interest from DP World and AD Ports Group. No vessel has followed. “Until a vessel flies the flag of a Nigerian national carrier, the announcement remains an announcement,” Olubowale said.

The Fund That Has Not Bought The Ships

The sharpest evidence against Nigeria is the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund. Created under the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act of 2003 and financed by a two per cent surcharge on coastal trade contracts, the fund was designed to give indigenous shipowners affordable long-term financing for vessel acquisition.

By Olubowale’s estimate it had accumulated about $700m by 2025. Under the present administration an application portal opened in January 2026, participating lending banks rose from five to 12, and an initial $25m was made available. President Bola Tinubu approved disbursement in September 2026.

Processing has not matched the approval. By the minister’s own September account, as cited by Olubowale, NIMASA had received 92 applications, passed 20 to the lending banks, and seen one reviewed and forwarded for final approval. The minister has since directed the agency and the banks to speed up.

“Twenty-three years after the law was passed, Nigerian shipowners are still waiting for vessels the fund was meant to buy,” Olubowale said. The report does not include a response from NIMASA or the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.

The $25m released against a fund of roughly $700m, and one application forwarded for approval out of 92, is the number that matters to a shipowner weighing a vessel purchase. It is also the number that tests whether a national carrier could be staffed and financed if it were announced tomorrow.

Who Pays For Foreign Freight

The cost lands on importers and, through them, on households. Olubowale argued that swings in international freight rates raise import costs and put pressure on African businesses and consumers, with local economies holding little control over the shipping capacity that serves their markets. The same dependence weakens the African Continental Free Trade Area: cargo moving between Lagos, Freetown, Accra and Abidjan still travels on networks owned outside the continent.

There is a training cost too. Thousands of Nigerians have trained in nautical science and marine engineering under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme but cannot obtain the sea time needed to certify, because there are too few vessels to serve as classrooms. Olubowale said the Ijaw Youth Council recently reported that more than 100 cadets sponsored over a decade ago were still waiting to complete certification. “Without the ships, the training is money spent on a promise,” he said.

Nigeria is not starting from zero. Olubowale cited the 291-vessel indigenous fleet counted by UNCTAD, the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the Federal Government’s Deep Blue Project, and the minister’s statement that Nigeria’s territorial waters have recorded no piracy incidents for four years. Those are assets. None of them is a national carrier.

What To Watch

Three things will show whether Nigeria’s $9bn freight loss is being addressed or merely restated. The first is drawdowns: whether the 20 applications already with lending banks convert into money and then into hulls. The second is SLOSCo: whether Sierra Leone’s new company takes control of cargo or becomes one of the footnotes Olubowale described. The third is the flag: whether a Nigerian national carrier appears as a registered vessel rather than a memorandum.

On the current record, the announcement has outlasted the fleet.

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About Rosabella Eboh

Rosabella Eboh is an author at AfriLatest. With a passion for writing and a flair for creativity, she contributes original content and unique perspectives to the platform. Rosabella focuses on human-interest stories, cultural trends, and in-depth feature reporting.

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