Tariff sprees, digital upgrades, billion-dollar port promises, and Nigeria’s return to international maritime diplomacy. 2025 was a year in which Nigeria’s seaports were tested and shaped by more policy choices than cargo flow. Change at the scale displayed this year paints an industry trying to shed old inefficiencies while navigating new pressures at home and abroad.
Sweeping tariffs
Tariffs became the most visible source of uncertainty in Nigeria’s trade environment throughout the year. The trouble began in Washington, where the new US administration under Donald Trump reinstated duties as high as 15 percent on certain Nigerian imports, as part of its “Liberation Day” protectionism agenda.
For Nigerian exporters of light manufactured goods, textiles, and agricultural products, the decision erased already-thin margins and forced firms to quickly re-evaluate supply contracts.
At home, the volatility was compounded by Nigeria’s own policy experimentation.
The Nigeria Customs Service introduced a four percent FOB charge on imports early in the year, a decision designed to boost revenue as the agency was tasked with delivering an unprecedented N10 trillion target, almost twice the previous year’s.
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The charge, however, sent import costs sharply higher, squeezing firms already struggling with currency risk and logistics delays. It was suspended albeit twice almost as abruptly as it arrived, after an outcry from port users and concerns about informal trade channels and diversion of cargo.
The whiplash continued in the spring when Abuja approved a 90 percent duty waiver on imports permitted under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), pointing in an entirely different direction. The ministry of trade and investment said it will lower barriers to sourcing necessities from African partners.
By late in the year, with tariffs reinstated in the US and revenue pressure relentless at home, policymakers were still searching for a coherent balance between protecting fiscal interests and maintaining Nigeria’s relevance in global markets.
At a handshake meeting in Lagos in September, Customs and Manufacturers squahed their beef. It was there it was announced that that manufacturers bringing in raw materials, machines, and spare parts, among others will not have to pay the 4 percent levy, provided they fall under chapters 98 and 99 of Nigeria’s Customs Tariff.
Technology transitions
If tariffs revealed the turbulence, technology offered the promise of order.
The year saw Nigeria began stitching together the digital foundation its ports have long lacked.
A unified Customs platform known as B’Odogwu, first unveiled the previous year and piloted at Ports and Terminal Multiservices Limited (PTML), began to gain traction. It promised to automate clearance steps that once lived in stamp-laden files and the pockets of middlemen.
But B’Odogwu didn’t exactly live up to expectations for many. Persistent glitches and delays meant containers got stuck at ports for weeks, accumulating demurrage and rent fees for importers and agents.
At the Nigeria Maritime Expo (NIMAREX), Customs apologised for the faults and promised better optimisation and service. But the CGC has said there is “no turning back” from it.
Meanwhile, the launch of the Authorised Economic Operator programme signalled a shift toward trust-based controls, rewarding compliant traders with faster processing and introducing a level of predictability rare in Nigerian logistics.
At airports, the rollout of the Electronic Currency Declaration Form promised a future in which every transaction into and out of the border is recorded without friction.
That same ambition drove the reactivation of the National Single Window, a long-deferred platform intended to unify Customs, port authorities, regulators and shippers into one interface.
For years, the idea has been held up as the silver bullet for Nigeria’s bureaucratic pain. This year, it finally began to feel less like a concept note and more like a destination. The steering committee, in October, said it will begin its first phase of operations in March 2026.
Maritime security also joined the upgrade cycle. Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA)’s new satellite-based monitoring system extended eyes across the Gulf of Guinea, promising to shrink blind spots that once enabled piracy, oil theft and under-declared cargo.
Taken together, these reforms marked Nigeria’s most serious attempt yet to digitise its maritime economy, though their real test will only begin from January 2026.
Infrastructure & Investment
In 2025, Nigeria also moved to confront the physical bottlenecks that have long defined life at its ports.
The Eto truck callup system had helped ease the notorious congestion at Apapa’s port corridor, but officials quickly realise that software cannot compensate for crumbling quays, overstretched container yards and roads that turn to gridlock at the first hint of rain.
In October, the federal government announced a $1 billion investment in upgrading the Lagos port infrastructure. Officials described the upgrades as the first step in a more holistic surgery on the country’s logistics backbone.
While the federal government didn’t disclose many details about the project, including a timeline, an earlier report by Africa Intelligence in March disclosed that a $700 million contract to renovate Lagos ports was awarded to ITB Nigeria, a construction company owned by Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian businessman with close ties to President Bola Tinubu.
The 10-year plan
The planned renovations are part of Nigeria’s maritime ambitions.
In May, the nascent ministry of marine and blue economy approved a 10-year Marine and Blue Economy Policy, a blueprint designed to unlock investment across ocean-based industries covering the nation’s port logistics and shipping services to fisheries, coastal tourism and offshore energy.
For a sector often trapped in electoral cycles, the decade-long plan promised continuity that could outlive politics.
Part of this plan was to strengthen Nigeria’s domestic shipping capacity.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) announced that a $700 million cabotage fund would be disbursed starting in August to support local shipowners, enhance fleet capacity, and reduce reliance on foreign vessels for domestic trade.
The fund, aimed at boosting domestic shipbuilding, vessel acquisition, and operator financing, was widely welcomed by maritime stakeholders as a tangible step toward fulfilling the country’s long-standing Cabotage Act ambitions.
By December, however, the fund had yet to reach operators. BusinessDay spoke with shipowners who had contributed capital and reported that they were unable to access the fund they own, citing high and sometimes unfeasible capital percentages for eligibility.
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International wins
There were symbolic wins, too.
While domestic reforms and revenue debates dominated headlines at home, 2025 was also the year Nigeria reclaimed its voice in major maritime conversations.
In June, Nigeria won the right to chair the World Customs Organisation’s council for the first time in 73 years years, and secured the hosting rights for the Intra-African Trade Fair IATF in 2027. The announcement was made in Algiers during this year’s edition of the biennial fair.
Meanwhile, the long-gestating Regional Maritime Development Bank (RMDB) finally came to life with Nigeria as first host country and Adeniran Aderogba, a Nigerian appointed its first president and Chief Executive Officer.
It was reported that a $150 million financing deal to upgrade a major shipyard in Nigeria was signed with the bank.
2025 was also the year Nigeria broke a painful streak of unsuccessful bids. In November, Nigeria was elected into Category C of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Council, returning to the body’s governing tier after a 14-year absence.
This seat, won during the IMO General Assembly in London, places Nigeria among a select group of nations engaged in shaping international shipping rules, safety protocols and environmental standards, areas central to global trade and ocean governance.
If 2025 was the year Nigeria regained its voice, 2026 will be the year it turns that voice into victories.
Trade performance
For all the policy noise, some indication of progress was found in the movement of ships. By the third quarter, export containers had grown tenfold, pushing cargo throughput to 33.5 million tonnes according to the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA).
Import activity also increased. Import‑laden containers climbed by about 33 percent in the third quarter, with 268,713 TEUs handled, up from the prior year.
Port-level data showed Tin Can Island and Apapa ports accounted for the largest share of vessel calls, while Lekki Port handled the largest ships and led cargo throughput growth, contributing 46.8 percent of total cargo in the third quarter. Lekki had overtaken TinCan earlier in the year as Nigeria’s second most valuable by revenue.
Yet performance remained uneven. Apapa, TinCan Island and Lekki ports, the country’s busiest gateways, still failed to crack the world’s top hundred ports by cargo throughput for the ninth consecutive year, reminding Nigeria that it is still not moving cargo as efficiently as its peers.
And just as exporters celebrated new momentum, the United States’ silence on the renewal of the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), which expired in November, tightened access to its market again, raising the stakes for diversification under the AfCFTA and for new bilateral courtships in Asia and the Gulf.
Read also: Nigeria returns to International Maritime Council after 14 years
The domestic market also wrestled with who truly benefits from openness. The review of the $300 duty-free import threshold split traders between those who saw relief for small-scale commerce and those who feared rising leakage into informal retail.
2025 wasn’t free of regulatory friction. Customs agents faced a twenty-fold increase in licence fees under a contentious review, and new duty regimes briefly pushed import levies up by as much as 186 percent for some cargoes.
As 2025 closes, the challenge for industry leaders is no longer whether reform was necessary but whether Nigeria’s ports and maritime policies could sustain the country’s ambitions in regional and global value chains in 2026 and onward.
