E-PORTS Port Voyage Column | Lagos: “Venice of Africa”

Magellan's ships traveled north along the west coast of Africa and passed through Lagos, today the largest seaport in West Africa. Located in the southwest tip of Nigeria and made up of a collection of islands, Lagos is the largest city in West Africa and a famous “ Floating City” with many bridges built to link its islands to the mainland, which is known as “Venice of Africa”. Today E-PORTS will introduce Lagos, a large seaport in Nigeria.       

A Brief Introduction of Ports in Lagos

The Lagos Port Complex: The Lagos Port Complex and its four deep water berths were established in 1913 and 1921 respectively in Apapa, Lagos, the commercial center of Nigeria. Characterized by cost effectiveness and friendly customer services, Apapa can provide its customers with advanced loading and unloading equipment, experienced port workers, multimodal transport (such as railways, waterways and highways), and four-wheel sluice gates of about 8 meters to handle oversized cargoes which further enhances Apapa’s competitiveness in dealing with such cargoes in comparison with other ports.       

Apapa: Apapa lays the foundation for Lagos being the the largest city in West Africa. As the largest port in Lagos and also in Nigeria, Apapa loads and unloads nearly 33% of imports and exports in Nigeria. Situated in the west of Lagos Island, Apapa is a major container terminal operated by the Federal Government of Nigeria and is able to handle cargoes of up to 22,000TEUs.With its length of 950 meters, the terminal covers an area about 44 hectares with 6 berths inside and nearly 195,000 TEUs can be stored here. There are 298 plugs for refrigerated containers to store goods. 

Tin Can Island Port: Tin Can Island Port is another busy port in Nigeria, which is more advanced compared with Apapa. With the fairway width of 200 meters and the water depth of 11.5 meters, the port is designed to handle general cargoes of up to 3 million tons per year. Berth 9 is for Ro-Ro ships whose draft should be below 10 meters. The Port has various loading, unloading and transport equipment, such as gantry cranes, mobile cranes, diesel forklift trucks, cargo cranes, truck scales, tractors, etc., to handle various ships.      

Trade in Lagos

Thanks to Lagos Ports (including Apapa and Tin Can Island Port), the city’s exports have increased by 9.3% compared with those of last year to ₦37.93 trillion in the first nine months of 2023. Its main exports are peanuts, rapeseed oil, cocoa, rubber, wood, palm fruits, cottonseeds, hides, zinc, and scrap. And the main imports are textiles, flour, machinery, cement, salt, sugar, beer, candy and food.    

Documents Required for Goods Exported to Lagos Ports   

Goods destined for Nigeria are mainly based on maritime transport and are mainly handled in Lagos. In Africa, different countries have different regulations on imports. Therefore, E-PORTS recommends that some documents below be prepared if you plan to ship your goods to Nigeria:   

Customs Invoice (2 copies) 

Commercial Invoice    

Certificate of Origin (CO)     

Inspection Certificate   

Certificate of Manufacture and Certificate of Free Sale (CFS) required for food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical supplies.  

Radioactive Property Certification Description (1copy) and Certificate of Analysis (2 copies) required to verify and certify a product's ingredients.     

Certificate of Age and Origin Requirements for Imported Alcohol Beverages.  

Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI) required for living animals, such as birds and beasts.