Maritime Lawyers Call for Unified Transport Legislation to Streamline Nigeria’s Logistics Sector

The Nigerian Maritime Law Association (NMLA) has intensified advocacy for a comprehensive legal framework governing all transportation modes, citing the critical need to address Nigeria’s fragmented transport system through integrated legislation. The call was made during the association’s 16th Lecture and Annual General Meeting, themed “The Future of Multimodal Transport in Global Trade: Evolving Carriage Regimes, Enforcement Mechanisms, and Legal Certainty.”

NMLA President Mrs. Funke Agbor, SAN, emphasized that interconnected challenges across logistics, infrastructure, policy, and economic development require holistic legal solutions. She stressed that evolving supply chain complexities, alongside growing demands for efficiency and sustainability, necessitate modern, coherent, and enforceable legal frameworks tailored to contemporary trade realities.

The conference featured two specialized panel discussions addressing core industry challenges. The first examined enforcement difficulties in multimodal transport, including overlapping liabilities, inconsistent documentation, and inadequate institutional coordination. The second focused on legal certainty in agricultural multimodal transport, analyzing jurisdictional clarity, emerging contractual models, and judicial roles in dispute resolution.

Supporting the legislative initiative, Federal High Court Justice Olayinka Faji identified the absence of comprehensive multimodal transport legislation as a major systemic challenge. This sentiment was echoed by Senior Advocate of Nigeria Mike Igbokwe, who highlighted the necessity of incorporating pipeline transportation of crude oil and refined petroleum products into any proposed legal framework.

Former NIMASA Legal Services Director Mr. Matthew Egbadon endorsed the unified legislation proposal, asserting that such a law would significantly enhance Nigeria’s logistics and supply chain industry. The collective expert consensus positions legal integration as essential for optimizing Nigeria’s transport sector and strengthening its global trade competitiveness.