NIGERIA’S MARITIME ASSETS

Despite the absence of a well-defined coordinated framework for optimizing the potentials in Nigeria’s maritime sector, studies report that the nation’s maritime assets as at 2017 was about ten times the size of the approved 2018 budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) of 9.12 trillion Naira. It is therefore ironic that while the country has continued to grapple with how to fund its huge fiscal and infrastructure deficit, adequate attention has not been paid to how to fully explore the asset riches in a maritime sector potentially capable of single handedly addressing the nation’s budgetary funding needs.

In order to fully benefit from the range of resources in the sea around us, there is need to better coordinate management across different sectors and resources and integrate environment management directly with economic development, fiscal policy and social goals. In this chapter, the various sources of maritime assets are identified and the challenges constraining their optimum exploration examined. This is followed by recommendations on how to overcome those challenges……..