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ABUJA. – Nigeria has opened a billion-dollar, Chinese-built deep seaport in Lagos, which is expected to ease congestion at the country’s ports and help it become an African hub for transhipment, handling cargoes in transit for other destinations.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who commissioned the port on Monday, has made building infrastructure a key pillar of his government’s economic policy and hopes this will help his ruling party win votes during next month’s presidential election.
Currently, most commercial activity goes through the two in Lagos and two others in and around Port Harcourt, the nation’s oil capital, resulting in steady gridlock and logistics issues for imports and exports.
Local newspaper Punch reported Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu as saying that “the size of vessels that will be coming here could be up to four times the size of vessels that currently berth at Tin Can and Apapa Ports [Lagos’s existing ports].”
Authorities have said the new port, built at a reported US$1.5 billion, is one of the largest in West Africa.– Al Jazeera
Online Reporter