Chaos with better branding

Let's begin with our first story.

We're seeing the US lifting restrictions on Nigerian ports.

and this can boost trade, improve our operations.

But I just wanted to give our listeners a backstory.

Why were we even having restrictions in the first place? I thought that our relations with the U.S.

were strong, seeing that they also had, we saw the cooperation.

I mean, after they declared us a country of particular concern, we've seen a keen interest in ensuring security of Nigerians.

So I thought, I mean, there's an assumption that Nigeria has a good relationship with the US as well.

But then now I've seen them, they are lifting these restrictions.

What's the impact of the restrictions? What led to this, you know, lift of the ban? And how, most importantly, how will this ban affect Nigeria's international trade?

Yeah, I think those are complex questions.

I think to start with, yeah, I think it's important to start with this, yes, that the U.S. did not prohibit Nigeria's exports or they imposed some blanket ban on Nigerian ports.

That's not what happened.

I think sometimes in June of 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard, they presume and they believe that the security arrangement we have in our ports is is not strong enough.

So, essentially, if a vessel, for instance, if a ship is saying it's coming from South Africa, And it's traveling to the U.S. And then for some reason, the ship actually bought in Nigerian ports.

When it gets to Nigerian ports, maybe it'll float some goods or it picks up some goods before heading to the U.S.

The mere fact that that ship had boarded in Nigeria, the assumption is that we had some security lapses.

We've not been doing what we should do.

So what the Coast Guard had said, and the U.S. security system responsible for this kind of thing, that was the U.S. Coast Guard, they said, oh, this vessel that will be coming to U.S. will require additional security measures.

especially, and they will face greater scrutiny.

And that comes at a cost, of course.

It means essentially that because you're going to face additional security measures, you're going to face greater scrutiny.

It means that the time that it will take you to move goods will have to increase and the personnel that will be involved.

So if you build all those things into costs, it makes one way or the other the shipping costs for any vessel that moved through nigeria to go up astronomically i think that's what it means essentially so regardless of whether the ship for instance a ship is going from nigeria goes to spain it france goes to the u.s before heading to the united states as long as nigeria is part of it the faith does scrutiny And what that means in essence is that many people will pull back and say, okay, I don't want Nigeria, especially if you are, I mean, if you look closely at Nigeria, we really do not export a lot of things.

Yeah, we could look at that and say we don't really, Nigeria is in a very aesthetic state in terms of how many goods we export, except for maybe for agricultural products that we export.