A maritime lawyer has said that the Nigerian maritime industry has the capacity to generate N7 trillion annually, noting that the industry losses over $1 trillion to foreign players in the local shipping industry due to non-disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, CVFF.

In his presentation at the maiden interactive session with maritime stakeholders in Lagos, maritime lawyer, Emeka Akabogu, said that one of the principal mandates of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, is to develop and implement policies and programmes that will facilitate growth of local shipping capacities.

Akabogu also said that the industry can also adequately contribute to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, adding that the maritime sector is potentially the largest economic sector outside of oil and gas.

He disclosed that Nigeria’s untapped blue economy potential is valued at $296 billion as the sector can also generate 2 million jobs over 5 years.

He said: “Over the course of the last five years or so, the subject of “the blue economy” has become very popular in Nigeria, and severally adumbrated at diverse fora. This must have played a part in the decision of President Bola Tinubu to create the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, a major milestone seen as the culmination of years of advocacy in the industry, and welcomed by many. “However, we must now go beyond the euphoria of the emergent semantics to interrogating the substance and charting an effective course for Maritime Nigeria.

The blue economy incorporates everything we know and have been dealing with about the traditional maritime economy, in addition to the entirety of value accruable from all water-bodies.