Eric Opah’s Fortune Global Sets Standards in Shipping
Compliance advocate in maritime, founder/CEO of Fortune Global Shipping & Logistics Limited, Dr. Eric Opah, shares his almost three decades of experience in the shipping and logistics industry with Nduka Nwosu
Eric Opah can easily pass as the poster boy of the global maritime business in corporate Nigeria. He has the language, exposure and an impressive track record, a fitting achievement as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fortune Global Shipping & Logistics Limited. Having drawn immense experience from the Panalpina World Transport Group, which to many represents the pinnacle in the shipping, clearing and logistics business, is it any wonder, Opah as a practitioner is obsessed with the need for transparency, trustworthiness, and compliance in the industry? Opah’s dream is to use Fortune Global Shipping to remind practitioners within and outside the shores of Nigeria, that the country can be ranked better in global best practices.
Whether as a board member of the Nigerian American-Chamber of Commerce, or an associate member of the Institute of Directors of Nigeria (IoDN), Opah’s mantra has been transparency, trustworthiness, and compliance in the delivery of goods and services. No platform offers a better place to practice these ideals than Fortune Global Shipping, which keeps gaining global recognition for maintaining lofty standards as a brand. The Nigeria 50 Award, sponsored by the Tony Elumelu Foundation with Professor Michael Porter’s All World Network (USA), ranked Fortune Global Shipping 10th among the fastest growing companies in Nigeria. Opah sees this as an acknowledgement of Global Fortune Shipping’s accomplishments as he remains unrelenting in his advocacy of over three decades.
The prize for the company’s business growth and excellence included his attendance of the All-World Network Executive Program in Harvard University. Says Opah, who parades several honours, including, Fellow, Nigerian Institute of Logistics Academy, “My goals and aspirations are diverse, and they range from personal to industry-based goals. As an entrepreneur, my goal is to continue to grow the Fortune Global of my dream into a globally competitive business enterprise. Again, I aspire for a Nigerian logistics and forwarding industry where the players can be described as competent, professional, and trustworthy as against the dominant view that most multi-national enterprises and international industry players hold about how we practice the business in our country. If the profession is to follow the global prescription of best delivery and due process, it follows the growth of the shipping and logistics business would be given, in Nigeria.
Opah agrees but adds that there has been significant growth, yet Nigeria’s snail walk in this sector falls below 40 percent. According to him, the shipping and maritime economy must walk the growth ladder of operational efficiency, technological approach or digitisation of the entire shipping and maritime sector, in response to global industry trends and standard practices that promote industry performance and transparency: “Rating both sectors on a scale of 1-10, I will put these sectors at 4 over 10 for several reasons. There is operational inefficiency, followed by functional duplicity of the regulatory bodies, leading up to multiple cargo examinations charges, and cargo delivery delays. A significant knowledge gap in documentation, interpretation of taxes, tariff classification, poor understanding of International Commercial Terms (INCOTERMS) and diverse regulatory requirements is obvious.
“There is a huge deficit in technological and physical infrastructure. Most regulatory leaders of the Nigerian maritime and general transport sector, have limited knowledge of industry requirements and global best practices, inhibiting the level of progress expected for the 21st century logistics industry.”
Opah, a fellow of the Nigerian Ports and Terminal Management Academy, extends his advocacy and expectations of growth and standard practices to the need for states and the Federal Government to open the sector through the development of the un-utilised ports in the country by dredging the waterways and deepening sea routes. As he put it, overwhelming Lagos with excessive maritime activities appears to be a deliberate act of poor planning, and weak orientation towards economic diversification.
He states that his position is informed by the fact that two decades following Nigeria’s independence, there were at least five functional seaports in Nigeria – the ones in Apapa (Tin Can and Apapa main port), Warri, Sapele, Port Harcourt, and Calabar. “All that was required in all these ports,” he insists, “was infrastructural development and the expansion of their operational capacities to maintain efficient import and export operations. The economic implication of the neglect of the other ports has led to over-dependence on the Tincan and Apapa ports.”
He continues: “These have over-whelmed Lagos to the extent that the traffic gridlock, delay in cargo delivery, disruption of other economic activities, including the manufacturing sector and supply chains schedules across Nigeria, are getting worse daily. Many business owners have relocated from Apapa to Lagos Island when it could have been better staying closer to their business locations.
“Another major consequence of this over-dependence on Lagos ports is the weakening of the agricultural, and other export sectors due to the difficulty and high cost of moving goods from other parts of Nigeria to the ports in Apapa.”
Furthermore, he adds, this has also led to huge revenue losses for the Federal Government due to diversion of vessels and businesses to other ports within the West African zone such as Cotonou and Lomé ports. Opah debunks the long-held view that heavy duty ships cannot navigate the shallow waters in other parts of the country.
According to him, these are old women’s tales designed as a cover up, another excuse for not doing the right thing. “The truth is that across the world, in places where ocean drafts are shallower than the others, economic exigency compels government to invest in dredging and expansion of port capacities to hold large vessels. We can borrow a leaf from Egypt where a once shallow River Nile has become a major transport route for ships around the world. This is the practice in various parts of the globe.”
Opah who is the President of the Mbubo Transformation Group, a platform for community development in Abia State and the Eric Opah Foundation, which is strong on educational empowerment of youths, is asked how the South East can learn from Lagos that has constructed an additional port of its own.
“Let us correct an impression here,” he educates his audience, “the onus rests on the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Nigerian Ports Authority to construct port infrastructure anywhere in the country. Nevertheless, the South East governments can collaborate with the Federal Government through the Nigerian Ports Authority and private investors to develop ports and free trade zones as is the case with Lekki and Lagos free zones.
“However, the Lekki Free Trade Zone is supported by easy access to the Atlantic Ocean. The Federal Government needs to give licenses and permits or right of way for private investors to get involved in the development of a deep seaport between Abia and Akwa Ibom for instance.
“Consequently, South East governors also need to sell the viability of an Eastern Seaports Initiative (ESI).to private investors and with a development action plan for such initiative.”
The safety of sea routes for transportation of passengers, goods and services has often been questioned but Opah, who once served as the Director of Air Cargo Operations for China Southern Cargo Airlines, says the sea routes are safe to the extent of the security measures put in place to protect them. He argues that “without effective security patrols by the Nigerian Navy and other security agencies, one cannot say that the sea routes are safe.”
Why is the sector not maximising freight and passenger movements within the country? Opah explains this is due to the huge infrastructural deficit, evident in poor inland waterways, road development, and inadequate rail channels which have affected every means and mode of transportation for both freight and passenger movements across the country. “Similarly, insecurity prompted by terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and highway robberies are critical inhibitors of freight and passenger movements across Nigeria,” he said.
He goes further to outline the other challenges in the industry: “There are several problems bedeviling the Nigerian logistics industry, which include duplicity of regulatory agencies in the Nigerian logistics value chain, shortage of professionally trained talents, inefficient customs processes, poor quality of trade and transport related infrastructure, low quality services, poor policy implementation, limited access to funding, dominance of foreign players, near or complete absence of refrigerated facilities to accommodate agricultural and perishable products. There are also the unregulated and non-compliant freight forwarding agents with an ineffective sanction mechanism and corruption due to heavy dependence on human interface in logistic processes.”
Needless to say that Opah who holds a degree in Business Administration, could not have been this successful without the love of family where Christiana has taken charge effectively piloting the affairs of three lovely children while daddy is in the battlefield. The Abia State Government had earlier honoured the President of Umunna-Nsulu Progressive Forum with the title of Oke Oji Abia or the Great One of Abia.
His biographer refers to his entrepreneurial ingenuity as uncommon among his peers and that he has proven he has so much unfolding on this uncommon journey. On his honorary doctorate degree award, Opah says it is a call for greater aspiration and continuous commitment to excellence as well as the need to invest in human capacity development through education and job-based learning. “It reminds me of the need to set-up a professional training academy for the Nigerian logistics industry as part of my own contribution to the development of the logistics sector in Nigeria.”
As a parting note, he insists the way forward is to re-vitalise all existing ports with ultra-modern equipment and the requisite IT infrastructure, while developing the critical access roads and rail lines to promote efficient supply chain systems.
