KEY POINTS
- Adegboyega Oyetola, minister of Marine and Blue Economy, says President Bola Tinubu has approved the start of disbursement for the $25 million Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund.
- About 60 indigenous shipowners applied through the portal NIMASA opened on Jan. 22, 2026, for the long-delayed intervention fund.
- Stakeholders are wary, recalling that a similar approval under the Buhari administration never translated into actual disbursement.
After years of delay, the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund is finally moving. Adegboyega Oyetola, the minister of Marine and Blue Economy, said on Thursday that President Bola Tinubu has approved the start of disbursement, clearing the way for the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency to pay out the long-stalled intervention pot.
Oyetola made the announcement during the commissioning of the NIMASA-UNILAG Institute of Maritime Studies building at the University of Lagos. He said the $25 million fund, once it flows, should lift indigenous shipping capacity and generate as many as 30,000 jobs.
The fund dates back to the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act of 2003, which set it up to hand Nigerian shipowners concessionary loans for modern vessels capable of competing with foreign-flagged fleets on local routes. It draws on a 2 percent surcharge on every cabotage contract, and successive administrations have argued over how and when to release the money.
NIMASA opened the CVFF application portal on Jan. 22, 2026, and around 60 indigenous shipowners submitted interest before the window closed. Eligible operators have watched the process for years, seeing earlier administrations promise release and then fail to deliver.
Shipowners want proof, not promises
However, stakeholders met Thursday’s announcement with cautious optimism. Many remember a similar script under the previous administration: Mu’azu Jaji Sambo, then the transportation minister, said former president Muhammadu Buhari had signed off on disbursement and swore the money would land before he left office. It never did.
“Until he left, the disbursement was carried out in the fertile imagination of Minister Mu’azu. We hope Oyetola’s assurance of disbursement would not go through the same route,” an Apapa-based shipowner told reporters.
Indigenous operators see the fund as a rare chance to finance modern vessels and compete for contracts that foreign-flagged fleets currently dominate on Nigeria’s coastal and inland waters. Still, until cash actually moves from the agency’s account to the shipyards, the industry is treating the latest green light as provisional rather than transformative.
Oyetola pivots to the blue economy push
At the same event, Oyetola framed the government’s wider play for the marine and blue economy as a critical driver of diversification, pointing out that more than 90 percent of Nigeria’s trade moves through maritime channels. The minister called the NIMASA-UNILAG institute a milestone for local capacity-building and said the facility houses modern lecture rooms, laboratories and research spaces.
On manpower, Oyetola disclosed that 2,459 Nigerians have trained abroad under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme, with placements across the United Kingdom, Egypt, the Philippines, India and Romania. Of those, 1,088 have already earned their Certificates of Competency, qualifying them to work on international vessels.
The minister also pointed to fisheries and aquaculture, noting that Nigeria’s annual fish demand of 3.6 million metric tons offers room for food security and job creation if the right investments land. Whether the CVFF finally gets out of the gate, though, will shape how seriously the sector takes Oyetola’s other pledges and how much momentum the blue economy actually carries through the rest of the administration.