By Sunny Awhefeada
Warri holds a significant place in Nigeria’s socio-historical destiny and economic configuration. To many people the city, which is fondly called Waffi, embodies fascination just as it invokes fear. Warri’s fascination springs from the beautiful yarns spun about it.
These stories sound like fables and the typical Waffarian calls them “fabu”. Its multicultural character, the Warri pidgin, its cuisine culture, dances, humour which is “yabis” and the wealth which its reputation as an oil and gas hub generated inspire fascination.
Warri is also a place to “fear”. It is the abode to tough boys. The many vices which translate to crime also abound in the city. But what gave Warri its old fame was neither oil nor the pidgin for which it became rich and famous.
The greatness of Warri and its centrality to Nigeria’s and if not global consciousness is the port known as Warri Port. Its coastal location which connects it with the Atlantic Ocean made it possible for Europeans especially the Portuguese to berth there as early as the fifteenth century. The era of the Slave trade and later colonialism saw Warri increasingly playing a significant role in the socio-economic survival of the entity that was to become Nigeria.
Warri has thus been in the global traffic of human activities for centuries. Warri is not just Warri, but it is home to Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo and this reality accentuates its cultural diversity. Warri has also assumed the status of a city beyond boundaries as many abutting towns now answer to the name Warri.
As an oil and gas hub with access to the Atlantic Ocean Warri played host to big industries which defined the sector. This advantage and the presence of a busy port soon turned Warri into a multicultural space.
While the oil and gas firms attracted Nigerians whose “tribes and tongues” differed as well as foreign nationals the same could be said for the port. The port brought wealth as each ship that docked came with maritime prosperity. Warri became a symbol of how ports define and shape places.
Among a people who believe in the blessing of Olokun the goddess of the ocean Warri boomed and luxuriated as each vessel landed and discharged its wealth-laden content. Warri prospered and her fame resonated and reverberated across the world. Those were Nigeria’s boom era before the locust season set in. Once the soldiers disrupted the democratic order on New Year eve in 1983, the economy experience a tailspin and the economic space diminished.
The military’s central command and control system which contravenes the federal tenet to which Nigeria subscribed at independence ensured that many sources of economic growth shutdown leaving many an economic platform in Lagos which was and still is the nation’s economic capital. This centralization drastically affected the port in Warri. To make matters worse what has become known as the Warri crisis crippled many businesses including ancillary ones that thrived on the fringes of the oil and gas hub and the port.
As the crisis ate up the soul of the city, the workplaces and businesses folded up and the workers, Nigerians and foreigners voted with their feet. The port became nearly moribund. The wealth and the boom diminished. Warri embraced poverty and misery from which it is struggling to escape.
The Federal Government has in recent times made attempts to reinvigorate the maritime sector a la blue economy. This has manifested in the Nigerian Ports Authority’s (NPA) declaration of increasing cargo patronage in ports located in Warri, Onne and Calabar. This is a welcome development that will grow the Nigerian economy beyond reckoning if well managed.
Beyond the positive domino effect the initiative will have for the national economy is the economic relief and boom for the states where the three ports are located and the entire South-South and South-East regions. The initiative will create multiple employments, birth ancillary industries, boost international trade, reduce cost of heavy business logistics and diversify the economy of the South-South and South-East.
A significant advantage here is that the economy will be decentralized in line with the spirit and temper of federalism. The outcome of such a step will be salutary for state, regional and national economies.
While the initiative to revive and patronize the three ports was being hailed by many as a step in the right direction the Lagos State government took a contrary position that points in the direction of economic hostage taking. For many years the Lagos ports with all the operational hiccups and gross inefficiency associated with them and despite huge economic loss they have inflicted on the country remain the only gateway to the flourishing global maritime business shutting out other ports and states.
Much of the Lagos magic real or phony derives from the undue advantage conferred on the state by the monopoly of ports and access to the blue economy. It is the anxiety of the loss of monopoly that is pitching Lagos State against the progressive and laudable policy of increased patronage of the three ports.
The NPA must go ahead with the laudable initiative and ensure a holistic economic development for the nation and not just an enclave called Lagos. Nigeria’s coastline with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean stretches from Calabar to Lagos and the ports located in the places should be developed to participate in the maritime business.
The Lagos ports located at Apapa and Tin Can Island have proved to be grossly inadequate for Nigeria which is one of the world’s largest economies. This is why Lagos alone cannot be the sole economic gateway to Nigeria. There is a compelling urgency to create an economic balance which the ports at Warri, Onne and Calabar will guarantee.
The Lagos ports are notorious for over congestion, unending delays and phenomenal loss to the nation’s economy. What Nigeria loses annually due to inefficiency at the Lagos ports is estimated at N7.6 trillion. The ineradicable traffic chaos in Lagos is because the state is overwhelmed with the burden of being host to the only operational ports in Nigeria.
The heightened criminality, population explosion, inflation and collapse of infrastructure in the state are part of the ugly outcomes of Lagos ports monopoly. Making the ports in Warri, Onne and Calabar to work will relieve Lagos of these burdens and also accelerate its transformation into a true cosmopolitan space.
The Warri port should come alive again so that it can perpetuate its history of centuries of global connections. Warri welcomed the world to Nigeria in the fifteenth century. The colonial period saw the creation of what is now the old Warri port which was nationalized in 1969.
The phenomenal boom of the 1970s saw the creation of the new Warri port in 1979. Then the locust years set in. But as part of government’s unrelenting efforts at diversifying the nation’s economy and focusing on its maritime potentials the Warri port was declared an oil and gas free zone in 2011.
Pundits of political economy have long recommended the revitalization of the Warri port as it will be a veritable channel of wealth and economic revival for Nigeria.
The Federal Government should note that the Delta State Government has developed the necessary road infrastructure that will connect the South-East and the Warri Port within two hours.
This reality will reduce travel time as the Lagos to South-East trip of twenty four hours can now translate into Warri to South-East trip of just two hours. It will enhance safety, security, reduce inflation, create new jobs, decongest Lagos, balance the regional economies and prevent huge economic loss to Nigeria’s economy. Warri port does really matter and so are Onne and Calabar ports. Let Warri port come alive. Warri port matters!
