President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has described the groundbreaking of the Bakassi Deep Seaport as a defining milestone in Nigeria’s economic diversification, describing it as a strategic national investment.
Represented by Vice-President Kashim Shettima at the ceremony in Bakassi on Friday, November 13, 2026, the President said the port would open new commercial corridors, stimulate industrialisation and create jobs.
He commended Governor Bassey Edet Otu and the people of Cross River for sustaining the vision and advancing it towards actualisation.
Tinubu recalled that the project was conceived in 2014, with an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment developed in March 2015, before receiving renewed impetus under Otu.
Designed as a 20-metre-draft facility, the port is expected to accommodate large vessels that currently bypass Nigerian ports.
It is also linked to a 260-kilometre superhighway to move cargo to markets across the country.
He credited Otu’s determination with helping to overcome institutional and financial obstacles, including efforts to secure a $3.5 billion Afreximbank financing arrangement and formalise the PPP framework in February 2025.
“This is beyond a Cross River dream. It is a Nigerian project. It is a poverty breaker,” he declared.
He stressed that the port would complement, not undermine, Lagos. “Lagos is not our enemy. Lagos is our elder brother in trade. No country eats with one hand. No country carries all its loads on one shoulder. That shoulder will break,” he said.
More than 80 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign trade, he noted, passes through Lagos, contributing to congestion and rising costs.
A second major maritime gateway, he argued, would strengthen the national economy: “When Calabar works, Nigeria works on two legs.”
The President said Nigeria had not fully exploited its Gulf of Guinea coastline, while neighbouring countries benefited from trade Nigerian ports could attract.
The Bakassi project, he maintained, would help retain regional cargo, expand international market access and strengthen the country’s maritime competitiveness.
Tinubu further observed that roughly 90 per cent of cargo moves by sea, yet Nigeria handles only a fraction of regional cargo trade despite its economic weight in West Africa. The port, he said, would help close that gap, reduce dependence on a single gateway and position the country to capture a greater share of maritime commerce.
He acknowledged the territorial and economic losses Cross River suffered following the Bakassi peninsula ruling and the loss of oil revenue, but said these setbacks had not diminished the people’s courage, hospitality or resilience.
“The peninsula was not the end of your story, but the beginning of your next chapter,” he declared, urging residents to protect the project from political interference and regard it as an inheritance for future generations.
In his speech, Governor Bassey Otu hailed the groundbreaking and credited President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda with providing the decisive federal support that revived the project.
He said political, administrative, legal and environmental challenges had stalled implementation until Tinubu’s plan to expand and upgrade maritime corridors created a fresh opportunity for Cross River.
Lauding Tinubu for guiding the state through the processes leading to the Certificate of Compliance and final federal approval, Otu described him as “a bastion of economic diversification and social equity.”
He recalled Calabar’s long maritime heritage, saying the new facility would reinforce Cross River’s established littoral status.
He said the project’s approval and delivery demonstrated the value of cooperation between the federal and state governments.
The governor said the state had completed preparatory work, including an Environmental Impact Assessment and hydrographic, geotechnical and geophysical surveys, and secured federal approvals. The project is to be delivered through a Public-Private Partnership arrangement, with an initial funding approval of $2.27 billion. He said logistics, trade, fishing, shipping, tourism and shipbuilding would benefit, positioning Cross River as a Gulf of Guinea maritime hub. The surveys, he added, exposed flaws in the 1903 navigational charts, which the Federal Government replaced on October 1, 2026, affirming the state’s littoral status.
