Posted on January 22, 2025
The 90-hectare site became fully operational in April 2023 and was hailed by officials as a “game-changer” for the Africa’s most populated country.
A vast new deep port in Africa’s most populated country cost over £1billion to build, and is predicted to generate over a £160billion in revenue.
The Lekki Deep Sea Port, said to be one of the largest in West Africa, became fully operational in April 2023, becoming a “linchpin for regional maritime activities”, according to its website.
The port was commisioned by former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who had hailed it as “a game-changer that would redefine maritime activities in Nigeria and the entire West African sub-region”.
It was put in motion in response to many of Nigeria’s seaports, inherited from the British colonial administration, no longer being functional or operate below capacity, as per Al Jazeera, with most commercial activity through two ports in Lagos and two in and around the nations oil capital Port Harcourt, the nation’s oil capital, bringing congestion and logitistical issues.
The Chinese-built site is 75% owned by the China Harbour Engineering Company and Tolaram group, with the rest owned by Lagos state government and the Nigerian Ports Authority, as per Reuters.
China is among the biggest bilateral lenders to Nigeria and has pumped funds into rail, roads and power stations, the news agency reported back in January 2024.
Lekki-Deep-Port
Speaking while inspecting the project in 2022, Nigeria’s then Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said: “The investment is huge: 1.53 billion dollars on fixed assets and 800 million dollars on construction.
“But the aggregate impact has been put at 361 billion dollars in 45 years, which will be over 200 times the cost of building it,” he added, as per Nigerian newspaper The Sun.
He added: “It will create 169,972 jobs and bring revenues totalling 201 billion dollars [around £164billion] to state and federal governments through taxes, royalties and duties.
“The direct and induced business revenue impact is estimated at 158 billion dollars, in addition to a qualitative impact on manufacturing, trade and commercial services sector.”
The port opened in January 2023
The vast site covers 90 hectares
Located east of Lagos city, and covering 90 hectares, the port was designed to handle the equivalent of 2.7 million 20-foot-long container units annually, CNN reported.
The port significantly expanded the Nigeria’s capacity for processing both imports and exports, as per the outlet.
Lekki Deep Sea Port is located near the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, which according to officials currently has a refining capacity of 500,000 barrels per day, officials said, as per Business Insider. They project hitting the target of 650,000 per day by June, as per the outlet.
Both large sites are within the Lekki Free Zone, a 16,500-hectare free trade area.
