Key highlights
- Kogi State Government believes that the port will rapidly develop the movement of agricultural produce and solid minerals cargo between Northern and Southern Nigeria.
- The dry port will serve as a link between Burutu in Delta and Port Harcourt via Onitsha.
- The Inland Dry Port initiative was conceived as part of the Federal Government’s ports reform program and would be sited at chosen locations across the country.
The Kogi state Government announced it has commenced talks with the with Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC) to build an Inland dry port in the state capital, Lokoja.
This was disclosed in a statement by Mr. Onogwu Mohammed, media aide to Gov. Yahaya Bello, stated in Lokoja on Thursday after a meeting with the CCECC in Abuja.
This also comes 2 months after President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Dala Inland Dry Port in Kano.
Dry Port
The statement revealed that the dry port will as a link between Burutu in Delta and Port Harcourt via Onitsha, they added:
- “Kogi state Government believes that the port will rapidly develop the movement of agricultural produce and solid minerals cargo to and from the northern and southern parts of Nigeria.
- “It will also scale up relationships between the state and the construction company for huge investments and development of the transport sector in Kogi.”
They added that Governor Yahaya Bello’s administration was doing all it could to attract huge investments into Kogi to stimulate rapid growth and development.
What you should know
Nigerian landlocked states have identified dry ports as a means of plugging their states into regional trade value chains in West Africa.
Earlier this year, President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the Dala Inland Dry Port, in the Dala Local Government Area of Kano State.
The Federal Government stated that importers and exporters will benefit immensely from the Inland Dry Ports being established in various parts of the country.
The Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Sambo, said the Inland Dry Ports Projects will help to decongest the seaports and take shipping and port services closer to importers and exporters in the hinterland and called on national and international maritime practitioners, shippers, shipping companies, landlocked countries, and port users to take full advantage of the Inland Dry Ports for imports and exports.
He said the Inland Dry Port initiative was conceived as part of the Federal Government’s ports reform program and would be sited at chosen locations across the country.
He said the six Inland Dry Ports approved by the Federal Executive Council would be concessioned to private sector operators on Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) with the strategic framework to build, own, operate, and then transfer to the government, adding:
- ”The Dala Inland Dry Port concessioned to Messrs Dala Inland Dry Port Nigeria Limited will be a Customs port in accordance with the provisions of the Customs and Excise Management Act, Cap. C45 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004
- ”And it shall have all the prerequisites of an international port.”
