Regarding a purported $600 million investment in Nigeria’s ports infrastructure, the Danish shipping and logistics giant A.P. Moller-Maersk has refrained from commenting.
On the fringes of the World Economic Forum Special Meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last Sunday, President Bola Tinubu and the company’s chairman, Robert Uggla, had private discussions.
“We believe in Nigeria, and we will invest $600m in existing facilities and make the ports accommodating for bigger ships,” Uggla was quoted as saying in a statement released by Tinubu’s spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, under the heading ‘President Tinubu meets Chairman of Danish shipping giant Maersk; secures $600 million investment in Nigerian seaport infrastructure.’
As per Tinubu’s statement, this expenditure will supplement the administration’s current $1 billion investment in seaport rebuilding throughout the eastern and western seaports of Nigeria.
Nonetheless, representatives of the massive shipping and logistics industry stated in a statement released by the business, which was published by Lloyd’s List, a worldwide platform for maritime information, data, and analytics, “Maersk has been present in Nigeria for 35 years and, as a global provider of logistics services, we remain committed to develop opportunities for growth to people, the port sector and businesses locally,” the company said in a statement to Lloyd’s List.
“Therefore, it is natural to have an ongoing dialogue with the administration. However, we are not able to comment on any investment talks.”
Dada Olusegun, Tinubu’s Special Assistant on Social Media, responded late Tuesday to multiple media reports claiming Maersk had denied making such a million-dollar investment in Nigeria, saying the business hadn’t refuted the FG’s claims.
Olusegun, who tweets on X.com under the handle @DOlusegun, stated, “It was not Maersk’s headline choice that caused controversy. It was the media’s.” Maersk has not refuted or rejected the statements made by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
