Nigeria’s empty-container crisis deepens as agents and shipping firms trade accusations over worsening port congestion and rising transport costs

Chairman of the Shipping Association of Nigeria, Boma Alabi, and senior leaders of licensed customs agents have intensified a dispute over Nigeria’s empty-container crisis, with both sides accusing one another of fuelling congestion around the nation’s ports.

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The clash follows rising complaints from freight forwarders that shipping companies are failing to take back empty containers after discharging imports, leaving thousands of boxes abandoned across port corridors.

Riwan Amuni, a chieftain of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, said truck operators and other actors had exploited earlier gridlock around Apapa, creating a profitable racket that now distorts transport costs.

Amuni warned that the mounting empty-container crisis threatened to trigger severe congestion.

He alleged that some vessels discharge containers in Nigeria but sail out with far fewer empties to pursue more lucrative export operations at other African ports.

He said he recently paid 1.4 million naira to haul two containers from Apapa to Ijora, a sum he described as alarming.

According to him, the absence of enforcement by relevant authorities has emboldened shipping lines to ignore calls to evacuate equivalent volumes of empty boxes.

Abayomi Duyile, Apapa Chapter Chairman of the National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, backed the concerns, insisting the pattern of empty-container abandonment has persisted for years.

Duyile said some firms hold on to empty units solely to deploy them for export, worsening congestion within terminals.

Maritime analysts have long flagged the scale of the problem.

In June, a research group, the Sea Empowerment and Research Centre, revealed that between 65,000 and 100,000 rickety empty containers litter Nigerian ports, contributing to environmental hazards and financial losses estimated at 500 million dollars annually.

The group’s Head of Research, Eugene Nweke, said the cost of transporting empties back to origin ports often runs into thousands of dollars per container.

Responding on behalf of shipping lines, Boma Alabi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, argued that some importers intentionally dump their empty units because the cost of returning them far exceeds the value of the deposit paid.

Alabi said many importers prefer to forfeit the roughly 100,000-naira container deposit rather than spend up to 500,000 naira transporting the box back to the port.

She maintained that the responsibility for returning containers lies with the importers themselves.

The widening rift has revived calls for firmer regulation, as port users warn that failure to address the crisis swiftly could lead to crippling congestion just as cargo volumes rise ahead of the year’s end.