How Digital Ports Are Rewiring Nigeria’s Economy
_ By Lod Onyeji _ LAGOS — When cargo ships idle outside Lagos for days, the cost is not just measured in demurrage fees. It shows up in food prices in Kano, in factory inputs in Aba, and in Nigeria’s GDP. That is why the Nigerian Ports Authority is betting its next decade on two things: automation and better storytelling. In a meeting with the Congress of Nigerian Maritime Media Practitioners, NPA’s General Manager of Corporate and Strategic Communications, Mr. Ikechukwu Onyemekara, outlined what the Authority calls a full modernization reset — centered on digital systems like the Electronic Truck Call-Up, or ETO, and a nationwide push to expand port capacity beyond Lagos. The data behind the reform The logic is empirical. Port friction is a tax on growth. Before ETO launched in 2021 to manage truck movement in and out of Apapa and Tin Can Island, trucks spent an average of 10 days queuing on access roads, according to industry tracking by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce. That ...
