National Maritime Authority

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), formerly the National Maritime Authority (NMA) is responsible for regulations related to Nigerian shipping, maritime labor and coastal waters. The agency also undertakes inspections and provides search and rescue services. The governing board includes representatives of the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Transport and the Navy.

The National Maritime Authority (NMA), predecessor of NIMASA, was established by the Shipping Policy Decree of 11 May 1987, and was supervised by the Federal Ministry of Transport. Its mandate was to ensure orderly development, protection and manpower training in the shipping industry. The NMA also was given responsibility for monitoring marine pollution and spillage in Nigerian waters. The oil platforms off the Niger Delta are vulnerable, and the decree recognized the role of maritime cargo carriage in defense.

The decree establishing the NMA applied the 40-40-20 principal defined by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This meant that 40 of cargo should be allocated to ships from the importer, 40% to ships from the exporter and 20% subject to open competition, which may include ships from other countries. For non-conference and bulk cargoes it went further, sharing on a 50-50 basis, with the NMA having authority to allocate all export cargoes. Despite this ruling, in practice the oil extraction companies supplied their own tankers to transport most of the crude to their refineries abroad. However, members of the American-West African Shipping Conference said they had been arbitrarily denied shipments by the NMA, an issue raised several times by the United States government. In 1988 the NMA announced that it would be setting up freight booking offices in Liverpool, London, Hamburg, Paris, Tokyo, New York and Brazil. Dr. Bassey U. Ekong, Director General of the NMA, said the centers would record all inbound Nigerian cargos and would ensure "full implementations of UNCTAD's 40-40-20 principle". In the end, none of the offices opened.

In 1988 the NMA granted six Nigerian shipping lines "national carrier" status, including the state-owned Nigerian National Shipping Line. The NMA had plans to extend this status to more domestic companies so as to reduce control of trade by foreign-owned lines. For reasons of national pride, the NMA did not encourage domestic shipping lines to engage in feeder services, bringing goods to a distribution point for direct onward shipping, preferring direct-line services. An NMA official said in 1989 "the development of feeder services is not at the moment consonant with the region's maratime development". According to UNCTAD, the lines would have been best suited to feeder services, and ignoring this approach may have led to their demise.