The Nigerian Shippers Council (Lokoja)

The period before the creation of Nigerian Shippers' Council in 1978 was characterized by deteriorating quality of shipping services and unmitigated increases in Ocean freight rates by foreign ship owners who operated scheduled liner services to Nigerian ports.

Acting under a powerful cartel of Conference Lines arrangement, shipping companies unilaterally imposed freight rate increases, which averaged between twenty five per cent (25%) and thirty per cent (30%) per annum along three notable shipping ranges:

• United Kingdom West African Line (UKWAL),
• Continental West African Lines Conference (COWAC),
• American West Africa Freight Conference (AWAFC)

These increases were in addition to stifling port surcharges that the conferences equally imposed on the nation's economy.

This huge foreign exchange outflows arising from the carriage of our sea-borne trade by foreign shipping lines continued to impoverish the Nigerian and other developing countries’ economies, with attendant adverse consequences on balance of payment in favour of developed countries who are also the major maritime nations. The outcry arising from this adverse situation led the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – a specialized agency of the United Nations, to commence actions towards the resolution of the disturbing national economic situation.

Arising from UNCTAD's intervention, there emerged a New World Maritime Order in 1965 encapsulated in a document that came to be popularly known as the UN CODE FOR LINER CONFERENCES. This Code strongly recommended the formation of National Shippers' Councils in developing countries (also referred to as Group of 77) to act as a countervailing force against the excesses of foreign ship owners and other shipping services providers. UNCTAD confirmed this new order by endorsing the formation of Shippers' Councils in its 1968 meeting in New Delhi, India. Thereafter, Shippers' Councils sprang up in various parts of the world including the developed countries. The first Shippers' Council in Africa was set up in 1968 in Cote D'Ivoire.