Work begins on Badagry deep seaport in two months – Ambode

Construction work is to commence on what is to be West Africa’s largest deep seaport in Badagry, Lagos, in two months’ time.

Being incorporated in the project, which is being promoted by a consortium of private investors, is a free trade zone to further enhance commerce and promote export of goods from Nigeria.

The investors, BusinessDay gathered, are tidying up agreements with the federal and state governments as well as with host communities in what should facilitate smooth operations as work sets to begin on the site.

Akinwunmi Ambode, Lagos governor, who was at the site on Thursday, told the host communities that their interests would be protected in the project.

Justin Okwuofu, the resettlement suprintendent of the project, told BusinessDay at the site, yesterday, that all was set, and that arrangements and discussions were ongoing for the relocation of about 12 communities to be affected by the project, which is claiming over 1,000 hectares of land from the ancient slave trade city of Badagry.

Indeed, the project site is about 500 metres away from the popular ‘Point of no Return,’ as known in the slave trade days.

The Badagry seaport will eventually bring to four the number of seaports in Lagos alone. There are two existiing ports – Apapa and Tin Can ports, while another is also being sited in the Lekki area of the state. Lagos is Nigeria’s commercial centre and hub of trade and commerce in West Africa, and the size of its economy put at about $45 billion is equivalent to that of Ghana.

With the seaport coming on stream, the state economy is bound to swell further.

The project holds immense potentials in job creation, revenue generation and growing the GDP of the state, Ambode told reporters, saying “this is the site for the biggest deep seaport in Africa. The land space for the port is over 1000 hectares of which we have just been told that there’s going to be a free trade zone and then a container terminal that we are going to have here.

“We know that the investors have done the best they can. We have Mearsk in the bouquet of investors who have signed on to this project, and what that means for us is that we are going to have the largest cargo container port in Africa, situated in Badagry.

“That means a lot to us in terms of employment. It means a lot for us also in terms of new settlement. Like it has been said, we hope that in the next two months we’re coming to start this project here.”