By Kenneth Jukpor
In a bid to address the myriad of challenges facing Logistics and Supply Chain in Nigeria, the African Centre for Supply Chain (ACSC) has called for the development of a National Logistics Policy in the country.
The Director General of ACSC, Dr. Obiora Madu made this call yesterday, during the unveiling of 2017 Nigeria Logistics and Supply Chain Industry Report in Lagos.
According to Dr. Obiora the establishment of a national logistics policy would act as a template for the nation to clearly highlight where and how the Logistics and Supply Chain sector would contribute to the development of the nation’s economy.
“According to the World Bank, any government that does not pay attention to logistics is impoverishing her citizens. We hope the Nigerian government can give us a listening ear to address these challenges. The first step to addressing this issue would be the development of a national logistics policy” He said.
“The economy of the nation would be better if the perishable items lost as a result of logistics challenges were available in the market. The challenge is that the people at the helm of critical government agencies aren’t aware of the inherent potentials of this sector and that is why we have to make our contribution by shouting to get the attention of the government.
“Today we had the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) Barr. Hassan Bello present at the ceremony. Although, this isn’t just a Nigerian Centre for supply chain but ‘African’ because Africa needs to improve its intra-African trade which is about 4% while the rest of the world is at 86%” He added.
Meanwhile, the Deputy President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Dr. Alban Igwe stated that Nigeria had all the natural resources required to make the country a logistics hub in the world.
Dr. Alban who did a review of the book at the ceremony, lamented that the nation was suffering as a ‘sleeping giant’ even though it had all the potentials to be a true logistics giant.
“Nigeria needs requisite infrastructure and Information Communication Technology (ICT) to drive logistics. If we don’t have the two, we cannot make any progress because logistics is the life wire of any nation” He said.
Dr. Alban admonished Nigeria to learn from Singapore which has become a logistics hub in the world by building capacity, embracing innovation and ensure the appointment of visionary leaders at the helm of government agencies that could transform the logistics industry.
Speaking on the significance of the annual industry report on Logistics and Supply Chain, Alban Igwe said the report would provide a guide to Ministers, Chief Executive Officers in the private sector and heads of government parastatals on several germane issues such as warehousing, road infrastructure, railways, etc.
He also lamented that Nigeria has not been consistent in the World Bank Logistics Performance Index, a problem he attributed to the dearth of capacity and visionary leaders in the sector.
“We don’t have a lot of competence in logistics both in human and material capacities. We also need massive investment. Nigeria was on number 75 in the World Bank Logistics Performance Index in 2014 but moved back to number 90 while Ghana and South Africa are moving upwards. It means so many things are going wrong and we are not doing well,” he added.
