NPERA Under Pressure As Shipping Lines Defy Regulation, Keeps Collecting Container Deposits from Importers
L-R: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, Director General of NPERA, Dr Pius Akutah and Dr Emeka Akabogu SAN.
By DAPO OLAWUNI
Fresh indications have emerged that shipping companies at Nigerian ports are still collecting container deposits from importers and freight forwarders, despite the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025 signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr Emeka Akabogu, raised the alarm in a keynote address on Friday at the Network of Nigerian Maritime Journalists (NNMJ) Unity Conference in Lagos. The conference was themed “Seaports Modernisation, Trade Facilitation and Revenue Generation under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Administration.”
He said it is the responsibility of the Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) to ensure the Act is enforced in the maritime sector.
Our correspondent reports that freight forwarders and importers remain at the mercy of foreign shipping lines through the illegal collection of container deposits. Over time the practice has become a lucrative racket for the carriers, which sometimes fail to refund the money.
DAILY TREND understands that Section 203 of the Act abolished the upfront cash container deposit system and replaced it with a mandatory container insurance policy, or an insurance-backed protection framework.
Importers, brokers and agents are no longer required to tie up large sums of refundable cash with foreign shipping lines to guarantee a container’s safe return. They must instead buy appropriate cover from a licensed Nigerian insurer.
Speaking at the conference, Akabogu said:
“In 2025, and this is from a legal point of view, Nigeria enacted the Nigeria Insurance Industry Reform Act. A very important act, which many people have not interrogated.
But it’s important within the context of a problem that we know in the maritime industry, which cargo holders face, and that is the problem of container deposits.
What the insurance act has done is to abolish collection of container deposits.
“So, that enactment is in the nature of announcements. Indeed, what has happened? As of last week, I reviewed a range of debit notes, and I can still see container deposits as an important item in the invoices. But it’s illegal. Container deposits by any shipping company today is illegal, but it’s still being charged.”
He said it was incumbent on operators to highlight the illegality and move against it. He noted that many importers and freight forwarders find it difficult to push back, often because they have not been entirely above board themselves.
Even so, he said, reporting the practice to the authorities is their primary responsibility.
“Right now, it is NPERA’s responsibility as economic regulator to get the shipping companies to do the right thing,” he added.
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council was transformed into NPERA after President Tinubu signed the enabling Act into law on June 19, 2026. With the new law, the agency is expected to move beyond its former advisory role and exercise legally binding enforcement powers over the commercial operations of the ports.
