‘Shipbuilding: Nigeria Not Ready For Industrialisation’

A maritime expert, Adakole Ejegbudu, has lamented that out of the over 5000 vessels that visit Nigerian seaports annually, none were built in Nigeria.

Speaking in an exclusive chat with LEADERSHIP, the Yacht designer said any nation that is not building ships is not serious about industrialisation.

According to him, for Nigeria to industrialise, it must take shipbuilding very seriously through massive investment.

He argued that China currently builds 50 per cent of the world’s vessels, thereby contributing to the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

“Any nation that is not building ships is not serious about industrialisation, and that’s why you see even President Trump issued an executive order in April. Trump wants to bring back shipbuilding entirely to the US, because currently, the US builds less than one per cent of the world’s ships.

“They are mostly building military vessels for their Navy. They gave up on shipbuilding, but he’s trying to bring it back entirely because the Chinese now build 50 per cent of the world’s ships and there’s a direct correlation between the projection of military power, economic might and shipping.”

“China is the number one economy in the world. Of course, the GDP has not caught up with that yet, but it’s clear, and the Chinese are building 50 per cent of the world’s ships. That’s why President Trump wants to bring that back and it’s a very comprehensive Executive Order that he gave.

“So, that is the industrial part. Okay, now there’s also the national security part. Now we have at least 5,000 ships coming into the country every year and none of them are built here. That’s for those coming into the country, what about those operating on our territorial waters, and we have an act that restricts them entirely.

“An act that was built after the US Jones Act, but the ships we have operating here are not built here. There are so many dimensions you look at,

Adakole further stated that there are shipyards in the country that can build cabotage vessels for indigenous operators.

“There are shipyards we can fit to produce smaller million-ton ships. And over the next five years, we can now scale up to building the really big vessels.

Now, there are yards in Port Harcourt, and there are yards in Lagos. These are yards that are fitted for between 700 and 1,000 deadweight tons of ships. It doesn’t take much to refit them to be able to produce ships that are 3,000 to 5,000 deadweight tons. It doesn’t take a lot,” he stated.

He continued, “The amount it takes to buy one of these ships is enough to set up a shipyard that can produce those ships. This is a critical part of the conversation,” he ended.