Story by Dili Utomi.
The heavy downpour through the morning on Tuesday notwithstanding, some members of the Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters Coalition in conjunction with other Freight Forwarders and the general public carried out a road show in support of indigenous ship ownership.
The coordinator of the group is chief Osita Chukwu, a Licensed Customs Agents of over 20 years of experience. Chief Chukwu led the procession inspite of the rain through Creek, Burma and Wharf roads and back to the Nnewi building area of Apapa.
The road show is particularly meant to encourage the Clarion Shipping West Africa Limited for the acquisition of the ocean going vessel, the MV Ocean Dragon. The vessel is meant for the transshipment of cargoes from the Lagos Ports areas to other Ports in Nigeria as well as for regional shipping along the West African coast.
A second vessel meant for intercontinental shipping has also been acquired by the company and it is right on its way to Nigeria to resume operation. The vessel is a 1,149 twenty-foot equivalent unit container carrier which will be used to facilitate shipping between China and Nigeria to help bring in part of the 38% imports of the total imports to Nigeria on annual basis.
At the end of the road show, questions were directed at chief Chukwu about what inspired him to engage in the excercise for a private concern amongst other questions that he fielded.
Chief Chukwu recalled that there was an indigenous shipping company called the Nigerian National Shipping Line with many ocean going vessels. He noted that the NNSL operated intercontinental shipping, but later became defunct after which there no longer existed any proper indigenous shipping companies in the real sense of it.
He said that the acquisition of the vessels by the Clarion Shipping West Africa Limited is a dream come through for most people in the Maritime sector as this is like breaking the proverbial glass ceiling for indigenous players in the shipping arena in Nigeria. “It is a first for indigenous shipping in Nigeria”, he noted.
Solomon Ogudo, the regional shipping manager of the company said that “the addition of the vessel is geared towards solving most of the myriads of problems in the movement of cargoes within the country and the West African region”.
He added that “one gets incentives of having $500 on every 40 footer container that you book with us and $300 on every 20 footer container booked with us”. Mr Ogudo aslo said that delays in cargo clearing will be cut by as much as 4 to 6 days. Again, he noted that there is no repatriation of funds to any other country as this is a wholly Nigerian owned company.
It is generally assumed that since the company is wholly Nigerian owned that the benefits derivable by the citizens of the country are numerous especially in the area of cargo movement to other Ports and cities and also in the area of demurrage payment which is expected to drop considerably.
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