Lagos state governor, Jide Sanwo Olu, has been given the license for the new seaport.
This time around, the port will be located at Badagry.
The $2 billion Lekki deep sea port being built by the Aswani family( the family that brought Indomie noodles to Nigeria) will be ready by December this year, so this Badagry seaport will be the third seaport in this city when completed.
The Lagos state government is not dropping any kobo for the project, but a group of foreign investors have come together to finance the project with their own funds.
These investors are expected to spend $2.5 billion of their own funds to bring this project into reality.
After spending the money, what is next for these investors?
Badagry deep seaport will be implemented under a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) concession structure for 45 years, so these investors will manage the Badagry port for 45 years so as to recoup their investment since they are not Father Christmas.
At the end of the 45 years, the investors will hand over the port to the Nigerian government as it is believed they will have recouped their money by then.
“During the 45-year concession period, the project is estimated to generate USD54 billion of revenue, create about 250,000 jobs, and attract an immense amount of foreign direct investment into the various support services required to build, operate, and maintain the port.
The investment will open up Badagry as well.
The same Lagos state will soon start building another airport in Lekki.
As we know, Lagos is a country within a country and is the 5th largest economy in Africa.
For proper context, Lagos state is the richest state in Nigeria and the 5th richest in Africa as its economy is bigger than Ghana and Togo combined.
In the next 10 years, in the next decade, when all these infrastructure legacy projects come on stream, which include; Dangote refinery, Lekki deep sea port, Badagry seaport, and the new airport at Lekki, Lagos will be an economic beast and will likely climb up to the 3rd largest economy in Africa after Nigeria and South Africa.
The ease with which Lagos attracts foreign capital is just beautiful to watch.
I just hope that my home state governor,Charles Chukwuma Soludo, and other south-east governors are paying attention to the economic miracle, the silent revolution going on in this city.
