There is a familiar pattern in Nigerian politics whenever the Yoruba begin to convert geographical advantage into economic power. The moment a major project begins to move from political promise to serious investment, the argument changes. Instead of discussing capital, jobs, trade, logistics, manufacturing and industrialisation, the conversation becomes a regional quarrel. The latest example is the Gateway Deep Sea Port in Ogun State, a project that has now moved into a new phase following the signing of memoranda of understanding between the Ogun State Government and DP World for the development of the port and a 10,000-hectare Blue Marine Special Economic Zone. The agreements, signed in Paris and witnessed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, envisage more than $7 billion in initial investment and more than 50,000 direct jobs when fully developed. The proposed port will have a four-kilometre berth and an 18-metre draft, while the surrounding economic zone is intended to support manufacturing, logistics, maritime services, technology and exports.
This should ordinarily be a straightforward economic story. Ogun has a coastline. Ogun has an industrial base. Ogun sits next to Lagos, one of Africa’s largest commercial centres. Ogun has access to the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway corridor, and the proposed port is designed to provide another maritime gateway while easing pressure on the Lagos port corridor. There is therefore a clear geographical and economic logic behind the project. Yet sections of the South-East have chosen to turn the development into another occasion for grievance, suspicion and accusations of maritime monopoly. The response from the Yoruba should be neither timid nor apologetic. The question is simple: why should Ogun be expected to abandon or reduce the development of its own coastline because another region is unhappy about its own access to maritime infrastructure?
The South-East’s frustration with Nigeria’s port system is understandable as an economic matter. Its traders, manufacturers and businesses require efficient access to international markets, and the country needs infrastructure capable of moving goods without excessive cost and delay. But economic frustration does not create geographical ownership. The South-East is an inland geopolitical zone comprising Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. It does not possess a direct Atlantic coastline like Ogun, Lagos, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom or Cross River. The proposed Azumini-Obeaku seaport in Abia itself demonstrates this geographical reality: the project is being conceived around an inland waterway corridor that would require connection through rivers to reach the Atlantic. AFP’s fact-checking of earlier claims about South-East geography found that the proposed Obeaku location is farther from the Atlantic than Lagos’s existing ports when the actual navigable route is measured.
That distinction is important because some of the rhetoric surrounding Nigerian maritime development has attempted to transform proximity to waterways into an argument that the South-East somehow possesses a maritime entitlement equivalent to the actual coastal states. It does not. A river is not the Atlantic Ocean. An inland waterway is not an oceanfront coastline. A proposed port corridor is not an existing deep-water maritime gateway. And a region’s dependence on ports elsewhere does not give that region the authority to dictate what a coastal state should do with its own geographical advantage. These are basic realities that should not be sacrificed simply because regional political arguments have become emotionally charged.
If the South-East wants a port, then build the port. There is nothing stopping the region from pursuing its ambition. In fact, Abia State Governor Alex Otti approved an immediate feasibility study in May 2026 for the proposed Azumini-Obeaku Seaport and Inland Waterways Corridor, working with China Harbour Engineering Company. The state subsequently moved into technical and hydrographic survey work. That is how the argument should be conducted: identify the problem, study the feasibility, pursue the necessary approvals, attract investment and build. If the project proves viable, build it. If it requires major dredging and infrastructure, solve those problems. But do not look across the country at Ogun’s coastline and demand that Ogun’s development be slowed down because the South-East has its own unfinished maritime ambition.
The hypocrisy becomes even more difficult to ignore when Akwa Ibom enters the picture. Akwa Ibom is not merely talking about maritime access. It is a genuinely coastal state with an established plan for the Ibom Deep Sea Port. The project has obtained federal approval, acquired and surveyed land, completed an environmental impact assessment, secured a Free Trade Zone licence and reached the Full Business Case and procurement stage, according to the project’s official status page. Its proposed location is designed around deep-water access and the state intends to integrate the port with the 14,400-hectare Ibom Industrial City.
Where is the outrage against Akwa Ibom? Where is the accusation that Akwa Ibom is attempting to monopolise Nigeria’s coastline? Where is the demand that Akwa Ibom should stop developing its maritime economy because other regions might feel threatened? The silence tells its own story. When a genuinely coastal state looks at its geography and decides to build around it, that is called economic planning. But when Ogun does exactly the same thing, suddenly the project is dragged into a regional political argument about monopoly and national balance. The double standard should be exposed.
The Yoruba should therefore stop accepting the premise that every Yoruba economic project must first be subjected to the approval of people from other regions. Ogun does not require permission from the South-East to develop Ogun Waterside. Lagos did not require permission to become Nigeria’s commercial centre. The South-West does not require permission to attract international capital. A region cannot spend decades demanding economic inclusion and then become uncomfortable when another region begins developing its own productive capacity. That is not national balance. It is an attempt to impose a ceiling on another region’s ambition.
There is an especially strange quality to the maritime monopoly argument. Nigeria does not have too many ports. Nigeria has too little efficient port capacity. The Federal Government itself has repeatedly pointed to congestion, inadequate draft capacity and logistics bottlenecks as constraints on trade. The Ogun project is being presented as another gateway capable of handling larger vessels and reducing pressure on the Lagos corridor. The President has specifically linked the port and industrial zone to the wider goal of expanding manufacturing, exports and maritime capacity.
So what exactly is the supposed offence? That Ogun wants another port? That international investors are willing to commit billions of dollars? That a Yoruba state wants its manufacturers and exporters to have direct access to global shipping routes? That the state wants a maritime-industrial corridor connecting its coastline to factories, logistics operators, airports and highways? If these things constitute a problem, then Nigeria has a much deeper problem than the Ogun Deep Sea Port.
The real issue should be competition. Let Ogun compete. Let Akwa Ibom compete. Let Lagos compete. Let Rivers compete. Let Delta compete. Let Cross River compete. Let Ondo develop its maritime potential. Let Abia pursue its proposed inland-waterway port if its feasibility studies establish that it is viable. Let every region capable of creating productive infrastructure do so. Nigeria should not be frightened by competition between ports. Competition can force operators to improve efficiency, reduce costs, attract cargo and invest in better services. A country of more than 200 million people should not be treating additional maritime capacity as though it were an act of aggression.
What is unacceptable is the attempt to transform a South-Eastern infrastructure problem into a Yoruba obligation. If businesses in Aba, Onitsha, Nnewi or Enugu face high logistics costs because of their distance from major ports, that is a problem for Nigerian infrastructure policy and for the political leadership of the South-East to address. It is not a reason to prevent Ogun from exploiting its coastline. If South-Eastern manufacturers want cheaper access to the Atlantic, they should demand better roads, rail, inland waterways and port connections. They should demand that their own governments pursue viable projects. They should attract investors. They should make the case for infrastructure. What they should not do is attempt to turn Ogun’s success into the explanation for their own infrastructural shortcomings.
This is where the South-East needs to hear the Yoruba argument plainly. The South-West is not responsible for the South-East’s development deficit. The Yoruba are not responsible for the location of the region’s industries. The Yoruba are not responsible for the condition of the roads carrying South-Eastern cargo. The Yoruba are not responsible for the failure of previous administrations to establish sufficient maritime capacity closer to Eastern markets. And the Yoruba certainly cannot be expected to surrender a coastal advantage simply because somebody else has spent years complaining about the distance between their industrial centres and the sea.
There is a point at which grievance becomes an excuse for refusing to compete. That point should not be allowed to define Nigeria’s economic future. The South-East has a formidable commercial tradition. It has entrepreneurs, manufacturers, traders, engineers, professionals and a large domestic market. It possesses enough human capital to pursue ambitious infrastructure projects. If that strength is properly organised around infrastructure, finance, industrial policy and regional cooperation, there is no reason why the South-East cannot build a much stronger economic corridor. But that requires construction, not conspiracy theories; investment, not resentment; strategy, not endless arguments about what somebody else is building.
The Yoruba have their own responsibility. It is not enough to celebrate the signing of a $7 billion-plus investment framework. A memorandum is not a completed port. An announcement is not a functioning terminal. A projected 50,000 jobs are not yet 50,000 jobs. The real test begins after the cameras leave Paris. Ogun must ensure that the agreements move towards financing, construction, roads, power, rail, security, environmental protection, community participation and eventual operations. President Tinubu has said the Federal Government will hold the parties accountable to their commitments, and Governor Dapo Abiodun himself acknowledged that implementation, rather than ceremonial signing, will determine the project’s real value.
That is the standard the Yoruba should demand. The project must work. It must create real employment. It must generate genuine industrial activity. It must give manufacturers better access to markets. It must support exporters. It must reduce logistics costs. It must bring meaningful economic opportunity to Ogun Waterside and surrounding communities. It must become a productive asset rather than another Nigerian infrastructure promise that looks impressive on paper and disappoints in reality. Defending the project does not mean refusing to scrutinise it. On the contrary, genuine Yoruba economic nationalism requires the courage to demand that Yoruba projects are executed properly.
The wider opportunity is enormous. The Gateway Deep Sea Port is being integrated with a proposed 10,000-hectare Blue Marine Special Economic Zone, creating the possibility of an ecosystem in which cargo is not merely imported and transported elsewhere but processed, manufactured and exported. The Federal Government says the 28-kilometre Ogun section of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is expected to provide a major link between the port, industrial zone, Lagos, the Nigerian hinterland and wider African markets. The vision therefore goes beyond a port. It is about creating a maritime-industrial corridor.
That is precisely the kind of long-term thinking the Yoruba should embrace. The objective should not be to build one isolated terminal and celebrate. Ogun’s port should connect with manufacturing. Manufacturing should connect with agriculture. Agriculture should connect with processing. Processing should connect with exports. Exports should connect with shipping. Shipping should connect with global markets. Airports, highways, dry ports, railways, technology companies, financial institutions and industrial estates should form part of the same economic architecture. A coastline becomes truly valuable when the economic activity behind it is strong enough to feed it.
This is also why the argument should be placed within the longer history of Yoruba economic geography. The relationship between Yoruba societies and the coast predates the modern Nigerian state. Lagos, Badagry and other coastal settlements historically formed important points of interaction between inland commercial networks and Atlantic trade. The geography created opportunities that generations of people exploited in different ways, sometimes productively and sometimes through deeply destructive systems such as the transatlantic slave trade. The correct lesson from history is not romantic nostalgia. It is that geography matters, commercial networks matter and societies that understand their geography can build economic power around it.
The modern Yoruba generation therefore has a responsibility to do something more sophisticated than simply celebrating historical prominence. It must convert geography into modern productive capacity. A coastline is only potential. A port is infrastructure. A port connected to an industrial ecosystem becomes economic power. That is the opportunity now presented by Ogun.
And that is why the South-East propaganda, where it exists, should be confronted directly. The argument that Yoruba maritime development amounts to an attempt to monopolise Nigeria’s ports is not a substitute for an economic strategy. The claim that Ogun’s development somehow prevents the South-East from developing its own maritime infrastructure does not survive basic scrutiny. The existence of the Gateway Deep Sea Port does not cancel Abia’s proposed project. It does not prevent Akwa Ibom from developing Ibom Deep Seaport. It does not prevent Warri from improving. It does not prevent Calabar from expanding. It does not prevent Rivers from strengthening its maritime infrastructure. There is no economic law saying Nigeria can have only one successful coastal gateway.
What the Yoruba should reject is the politics of scarcity that says somebody else must lose for Ogun to win. Ogun does not need Akwa Ibom to fail. The South-West does not need the South-East to remain weak. Yoruba prosperity does not require another Nigerian people to be poor. But neither does Nigerian unity require the Yoruba to pretend that their own geographical advantages do not exist.
There is a difference between national cooperation and national self-denial. Cooperation means building systems that allow different regions to prosper together. Self-denial means telling one region that its advantages must remain underdeveloped because another region has not yet maximised its own. The Yoruba should choose cooperation without accepting self-denial.
The South-East should therefore be encouraged to build its own economic future. But encouragement should not mean pampering. The region has political leaders. It has state governments. It has wealthy businesspeople. It has an enormous commercial network across Nigeria and beyond. It has universities, professionals, manufacturers and entrepreneurs. If the region wants stronger maritime access, then the political energy currently spent attacking Ogun should be redirected towards making the Azumini-Obeaku proposal viable, developing its road and rail connections, securing investment and creating the industrial infrastructure necessary to make the port commercially useful. The feasibility study approved by Governor Otti is precisely the beginning of that process.
The South-East cannot simultaneously argue that it deserves a maritime gateway and then object when Ogun builds one. It cannot demand that Nigeria decentralise economic opportunity while opposing decentralisation when the beneficiary is Yoruba. It cannot call for competition in national infrastructure and then treat Yoruba competition as an ethnic provocation. If the principle is development, then development must be allowed to happen.
And the Yoruba should not be intimidated by the language of “national balance” when that language is selectively deployed. National balance should mean that every region is given room to develop. It should not mean that every successful Yoruba project must be watered down until nobody can accuse the South-West of getting ahead. There is nothing national about deliberately restraining productive capacity.
The same argument applies to Akwa Ibom, and its example is particularly important because it exposes the weakness of the monopoly narrative. Akwa Ibom is pursuing a deep sea port because it recognises the economic value of its coastline. Its official project documentation says the port has 18-metre channel access, 5,129 hectares designated for port development and integration with a much larger industrial city. The project is being positioned as a maritime and industrial gateway for a large part of Nigeria and the wider Gulf of Guinea.
If Akwa Ibom can look at the sea and see opportunity, Ogun can do the same. If Akwa Ibom can pursue a deep sea port, Ogun can pursue one. If both projects eventually succeed, Nigeria benefits from having more maritime capacity. There is no contradiction in this. The real contradiction would be claiming that Nigeria needs more ports while simultaneously campaigning against the development of another port.
The coastline should therefore become a field of competition, not resentment. Let the states compete for shipping lines. Let them compete for manufacturers. Let them compete for logistics companies. Let them compete for foreign investment. Let them compete for export cargo. Let them compete on efficiency, cost, security and infrastructure. The state that provides the better service will attract more business. That is how a modern economy should operate.
The Yoruba should welcome that competition because competition is precisely what forces economic systems to improve. A protected monopoly can become complacent. Multiple gateways create pressure. If Ogun’s port succeeds, Lagos must continue improving. If Akwa Ibom succeeds, Ogun must continue improving. If Abia eventually establishes a viable maritime corridor, the other ports must continue improving. Businesses, not ethnic arguments, should ultimately determine where cargo moves.
There is therefore no reason for the Yoruba to retreat from the coastline. There is no reason for Ogun to apologise for its geography. There is no reason for international investors to be treated as though their decision to invest in Ogun is a political crime. And there is certainly no reason for a project designed to expand Nigeria’s maritime capacity to be turned into an ethnic competition in which the Yoruba are expected to defend their right to build.
The South-East should build.
Akwa Ibom should build.
Warri should build.
Calabar should build.
Lagos should continue to improve.
Ogun should build.
Every region should be encouraged to convert its economic advantages into productive capacity.
But the South-East should also understand that the Yoruba will no longer accept the idea that every Yoruba economic ambition must first pass through a tribunal of regional approval. Ogun does not need the permission of the South-East to use Ogun’s coastline. The Yoruba do not need permission to pursue industrialisation. And the South-West does not need to apologise for attracting capital simply because other regions have their own unresolved infrastructure problems.
The era of asking the Yoruba to slow down in the name of somebody else’s comfort should end.
The appropriate response to Yoruba development is development.
The appropriate response to Ogun’s port is another port.
The appropriate response to Lagos’s commercial strength is stronger commercial infrastructure elsewhere.
The appropriate response to Akwa Ibom’s maritime ambition is maritime ambition elsewhere.
The appropriate response to competition is better competition.
Not propaganda.
Not resentment.
Not regional intimidation.
Not the endless attempt to reinterpret somebody else’s geographical advantage as an act of aggression.
Nigeria has enough coastline, enough land, enough human capital and enough economic potential to support several major centres of maritime commerce. What Nigeria lacks is not opportunity. It lacks sufficient productive infrastructure and the political discipline to execute ambitious projects consistently.
The Gateway Deep Sea Port therefore represents something larger than Ogun State. It represents the possibility of breaking the concentration of maritime activity around one corridor and creating another major gateway into the Nigerian economy. The fact that it is located in the South-West does not make it less Nigerian. The fact that it strengthens Ogun does not make it anti-South-East. The fact that it may create tens of thousands of jobs does not make those jobs tribal. The fact that international capital is entering Ogun does not mean that other regions have been robbed of investment.
This is where Nigerian political thinking must mature. A country cannot build a modern economy if every major project is interpreted through the question of which ethnic group gained and which ethnic group lost. Infrastructure should be judged by what it produces. Ports should be judged by cargo. Industrial zones should be judged by factories. Roads should be judged by connectivity. Airports should be judged by passengers and commerce. Investments should be judged by jobs, productivity and economic returns.
The Yoruba should therefore defend the Ogun Deep Sea Port fiercely, but intelligently. Defend its geographical logic. Defend its economic potential. Defend the right of Ogun to develop. Defend the right of Yoruba businesses to benefit from infrastructure in their own region. But also demand accountability from the government and investors. Demand delivery. Demand transparency. Demand jobs for host communities. Demand environmental responsibility. Demand infrastructure that works. Demand that the promised transformation actually reaches ordinary people.
That is a stronger defence than tribal shouting.
It is also a more dangerous response to the propaganda because it leaves no room for the argument to hide. The Yoruba are not saying that other regions should not build. The Yoruba are saying that other regions should build too. The South-East has its opportunity. Abia has its proposal. Akwa Ibom has its project. The South-South has its coastline. The South-West has its coastline. The question is who will have the courage and competence to turn potential into infrastructure and infrastructure into wealth.
The Yoruba have no reason to fear that competition.
The Yoruba should embrace it.
A people that understands its own economic power does not need another people to fail. It only needs to refuse to fail itself.
The coast is there.
The opportunity is there.
The investment is coming.
The industrial vision is taking shape.
The only unacceptable outcome is for another generation to inherit the same coastline, the same opportunities and the same arguments while the infrastructure remains unfinished.
The Yoruba have waited long enough to see their geographical advantages converted into modern economic power.
The Gateway Deep Sea Port must therefore be built.
It must be built properly.
It must be built to last.
And it must be built without apology.
Because the Yoruba are not asking anybody to surrender their coastline.
They are simply refusing to surrender theirs.