Sen. Rabiu Kwankwaso, Presidential candidate, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) says it will not be business as usual in the maritime sector if he is elected in 2023.
He said that Nigeria needed a robust plan for future of its Maritime sector as it remained crucial to the growth and survival of the nation’s economy.
Kwankwaso also called for speedy rehabilitation and decongestion of the Apapa port access road in Lagos State.
The NNPP presidential candidate made the call at a town hall meeting with Maritime stakeholders organised by Prime Maritime Project in Lagos on Tuesday.
According to Kwankwaso, the country really needs to plan for the future of the maritime sector as it is critical to the growth and survival of the economy of the country.
“I have listened to this wonderful audience and have noted your expectations. I can tell you that I am aware of most of the challenges facing the sector presently. One of such, for instance is congestion on port access roads in Apapa.
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” It may interest you to know that in one of my visits to Lagos state, I was in Apapa and was stunned at the spectacle of articulated trucks lining the Ijora Bridge.
“To me, it is an unacceptable eyesore in a 21st century Nigeria. I was even made to understand that I came when things had improved. This is highly unacceptable.
“A port system originally designed for a population of less than 50 million people in the 1950s, with less than 2.0 million cargo throughput has remained almost the same for more than 200 million population in 2022.
“When a country’s population is increasing at geometric progression and port infrastructure remains static, the resultant effect is chaos. To me, that is the cause of the Ijora Bridge debacle and other issues. So many things have gone wrong with the industry,” he said.
The candidate said that his experience over the years as a former deputy speaker of the house of representatives, former governor, former minister of defense and a former senator had availed him with some basic understanding of the maritime sector and especially some of its challenges.
Kwankwaso said that it was his desire to see that the Nigeria Customs Service and other regulatory agencies be made to perform efficiently and effectively, saying the observed high level corruption in the system had to be tackled to improve productivity in the ports.
