Nation on Board
Page 24
Despite Balogun’s antagonistic rhetoric, he did not succeed in significantly increasing the percentage of cargo carried by the NNSL during his three-year tenure as director of the national line. As seen in the charts below, the NNSL controlled only a minuscule share of the total shipping volume in the first ten years of its existence:
Shipping Activities at the Nigerian Ports by Nationalities (Selected Years)
Source: Bassey Udo Ekong, “Survival Opportunities and Strategies of a Marginal Firm in a Cartelized Oligopoly: Case Study of the Nigerian National Shipping Line” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1974), 77.
West African Lines Conference (WALCON) 1962/63
Source: Bassey Udo Ekong, “Survival Opportunities and Strategies of a Marginal Firm in a Cartelized Oligopoly: Case Study of the Nigerian National Shipping Line” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1974), 81.
In order to achieve a significant increase in the cargo share of the NNSL, Kolawole Balogun would need to acquire more ships and renegotiate WALCON agreements determining the tonnage allocated to conference members. But Balogun did not have any expertise in the shipping industry, which would have been necessary to truly wage his “Battle for Cargo.” Moreover, fleet expansion required massive capital investment, and this was not forthcoming from the federal government. Two ships were purchased in 1963, but these did not have a significant impact on the NNSL carrying capacity. In any event, Kolawole Balogun’s tenure was cut short in 1966, when he was replaced by Otunba Adekunle Ojora. Ojora was a member of the royal family of Lagos, and the NNSL directorship was only one of several directorships that he held, including the United Africa Company and chairman of AGIP Oil. Ojora’s appointment, like those who came before and after him, was political, and he had no expertise in shipping. Political appointments such as these had grave consequences for the running of the company over the long term. Bassey Ekong wrote, “Except for just a few cases, most board chairmen have been anything else but practical businessmen, versed with shipping techniques. . . . That political factors are allowed to influence board appointments can never ensure neutral influences on the managerial and operations staff of the company. Thus appointments and rewards of such staff may not be by pure merit alone.”15
The political instability that plagued Nigeria during the lifetime of the NNSL only exacerbated the situation. According to Okechukwu Iheduru, Nigeria had twenty ministers responsible for the transport portfolio between 1952 and 1994.16 Constant changeovers in the political leadership over the years led to endless volatility and unpredictability; former managing director Gerald Chidi recalled, “Regular changes in the headship of the Federal Ministry of Transport and the company brought inconsistency in the focus and vision of the company. For instance, during my tenure as the managing director of the company from 1990 to 1993, I worked under four ministers of transport and my successor (1993–1995) also served under four ministers of transport and every minister had his own ideas.”17 Chidi claimed that this constant changeover in management led to many unsuccessful initiatives and wasted resources. He explained, “Each new appointee brought in different styles and ideas which never endured let alone yield the desired fruits.”18 Seamen blamed the politicization of the NNSL for its demise: “The NNSL failed because of the people that were managing the company. They do not know anything about the sea. Some of them have never been to the sea in their life. Some have not even seen a ship in their life, yet they were brought to manage the company and from there they started embezzling the money. They did not care about us and the nation that has the ships.”19
The political intrusion into the running of the NNSL led to abuses by some politicians who redirected resources of the company to their own interests, but an equally damaging impact of the political establishment on the running of the national line was the inaction of the government. All decisions regarding capital investments and fleet expansion, the extension of activities, rates and charges for services rendered to the public, investment of surplus funds, borrowing money, or raising capital had to be decided by the government. Ultimately, it was the lack of action on the part of politicians that was most debilitating for the NNSL. Many critics have noted that there is a deep incongruence between the successful running of a company in a competitive and cutthroat market such as shipping, and the operation of a government bureaucracy. Rather than running the NNSL as a profit-driven venture in a highly competitive and complex industry, Iheduru argued that the state ran the shipping company as an extension of a government ministry.20 This handicapped the NNSL. Bassey Ekong explained, “The company is a marginal firm in the oligopology—the conference—which itself faces intern-conference rivalries as well as the competition from well-entrenched tramps. . . . This means that the National Line has got to monitor its market and act swiftly to catch up opportunities by judicious extensions and curtailments of its services if it must survive in the economic sense. How then can the National Shipping Line perform these tasks, calling for prompt reflex decision making when it is supposed to work within the iron-clad controls of such ministerial directives?”21 Turning the NNSL into an economically viable enterprise would have required the government to make a long-term commitment to the venture and to take risks when necessary. But the government was overly cautious. Ekong wrote in 1974, “While security is being pursued, over-cautiousness had tended to slow down real progress capable of any able management personnel.” Ekong charged that the government was too slow to invest capital, and resources were therefore not properly exploited: “Red-tapism of public service has been allowed to influence this business venture decision making process.”22 New ships had to be purchased, and old ships required large investments in maintenance to keep them running properly, but the government mainly deliberated without taking action. According to Ekong, throughout the 1970s, the federal government feared the instability that characterized the shipping industry and wanted to be convinced of the soundness of any expansion proposal before risking capital investments.23
This kind of conservatism and politicization in a dynamic business such as shipping was indefensible and devastating, and many capable staff members left in frustration or were pushed out, further weakening the potential for the NNSL to succeed.24 Thus, the first Nigerian general manager, Nelson Oyesiku, who was appointed in 1964 to replace Donald Tod, left in 1968, claiming he was tired and disgusted by the politicization of the shipping line: “I am a professional and it got to the point where I could not bear the intrigues anymore. The nepotism, politics and what have you were unbecoming and I did not think it was good enough for a company like the NNSL so I quit.”25 In 1991, the African Maritime Economist described the organization as a Mafia, claiming, “If you belong to the reigning camp even if you do not qualify for a particular post, you will get it. Efficiency or inefficiency is irrelevant and if you try to correct the flaws therein, you get the boot for being a loud mouth.”26
The NNSL ships bore the signs of the mismanagement and political gridlock that plagued the company. By 1972, 60 percent of the fleet was more than ten years old, and maintenance costs rose along with the age of the vessels. From the very start, the NNSL ships were smaller and slower than those of the other conference lines. Already in 1960, GM Donald Tod wrote, “Records show on average that our ships are much worse than others.”27 A former captain of the NNSL described the situation: “The NNSL was our pride, though it started with old ships. This was why most of our engineers became very proficient at their work, very knowledgeable and hardworking because the conditions were terrible. They did all the repairs themselves. And we were very proud of them. In ED and Palm Line, most of the ships were air-conditioned, unlike the ships of the NNSL. Some of the ships such as MV Jaja, the Oduduwa, et cetera, were very old.”28 A former engineer with the NNSL recalled his first journey in 1968: “I went on ship a month after school with a ship that was not too healthy to go to Liverpool. We were about six cadets from Lagos to Liverpool on the ship that was going for repair. And it took
us about a month to Liverpool. And this was a trip that was supposed to take us nine days. And it was my first experience.”29 British seamen who worked on the Nigerian ships in the early years recalled the immense problems they faced in trying to properly operate and maintain the vessels:
The Dan Fodio seemed to be jinxed, as whenever she was in port she gained fines for polluting—she ALWAYS had a plume of thick, black oily smoke from her funnel when the port authorities were around. The Cross River was another exciting ship, always having engine problems! I remember she had an engine malfunction just at the wrong time (aren’t they always!) putting the ship, with my mother and father on board, onto the rocks on the way up to Grangemouth. Took an Admiralty tug to pull her off, doing minor damage to the ship, but a huge amount of damage to my father’s pride!30
One British officer, who worked as an engineer with the NNSL from 1962 to 1965, had worked on various ships including the Ahmadu Bello, King Jaja, Herbert Macauley, and Oranyan, all of which had some ongoing mechanical problems. But it was particularly the Dan Fodio, which he referred to as “Dirty Dan,” that was most ill-fated: “All we seemed to do was change banjo pipes, to stop water leaks, and cage fuel valves, to try and stop sparks coming out the lum. When I look back I must have been off my own trolley to keep going back.”31 He claimed that the Oranyan also had a very poor reputation among the British officers, and it was rumored that one engineer left that ship “in a straight jacket.” Another British engineer who had worked for the NNSL from 1966 to 1968 wrote: “The trip in the Oranyan was a nightmare trip and my last trip to sea. I flew out to join her in Dakar, Senegal replacing the 3rd engineer. The company told me he had missed the ship at Dunkirk, he actually refused to sail in her and tried to stop her sailing as he thought she was unsafe. He was right.”32
The management of the NNSL made the case for fleet expansion throughout the 1970s, claiming the national line was in dire need of new ships in order to increase the line’s cargo share. At the time, the NNSL carried only 10 percent of the total volume of traffic in Nigerian ports.33 Political circumstances made the situation worse, as Gerald Chidi explained: “It took the Federal Government almost five years to approve the tonnage expansion programme and modernisation of NNSL ships in the seventies. By the time the vessels were eventually built and introduced into the market, a measure of obsolescence had set into the original concept.”34 The nineteen ships ordered in 1977 at the cost of $180 million arrived within two years, but no sooner were these ships delivered to Nigeria than it was acknowledged that they were not optimally suited to changes in the industry brought on by containerization. At this point, Chidi claimed, “it took another five years to convince the government about the need to phase out the 19 combo vessels with a view to introducing appropriate vessels that were technologically up to-date as well as meeting market demands.”35 In 1984, the NNSL owned twenty-four vessels, but most of the ships were badly in need of repair. Even if the NNSL ships had functioned at full capacity, the fleet still remained minuscule in comparison to the 6,080 ships that called at Nigerian ports annually in the 1980s.36 By 1991, the NNSL had only twelve aging and extremely uneconomical vessels, and management made plans to auction off several of these in order to finance the purchase of new ships.37
Historians of the international shipping industry have bemoaned the “traditional veil of secrecy” that has shrouded its operations over time. As British historian S. G. Sturmey wrote, “Shipping is not an industry which enjoys scrutiny,” and much information about rates for services, income, and expenses is simply not available, as it has never been collected.38 But even in an industry traditionally known for its lack of transparency, record keeping and preservation within the NNSL was particularly scanty. Very little information regarding the financial status of the NNSL was made public, and few sources of the financial records of the company have been preserved. In a 1974 doctoral thesis that studied the economic viability of the NNSL, Bassey Ekong wrote, “The published data in the company’s annual report does not seem to offer sufficient information for serious study of the company’s operations.” Ekong continued, “The secrecy behind the data has been defended on reasons of protecting the company’s interests.”39 Thus, a full and detailed reckoning of the company’s finances is not possible to undertake, but a few studies conducted over the years by scholars, journalists, and members of the shipping industry in Nigeria provide important insights into the internal workings of the company. From the information available, it is clear that the inefficiency and waste that plagued the NNSL were largely glossed over by accounting practices that concealed losses over the long term. The minister of transportation and management of the NNSL took liberties in determining what information was included in annual reports and the balance sheet. According to Ekong, many costs were simply not included in the annual budget, including some very basic and highly significant expenses such as maintenance of the fleet and the interest paid on government loans. Ekong charged, “Apparently this was in a bid to reduce the level of operational expenses and to inflate the capital value of the company.”40 With much information missing from annual budgets, Ekong claimed that the financial problems facing the NNSL were not reflected in the published accounts and balance sheets. As maintenance fees were not part of annual budgets, the repairs needed were never made. He wrote, “During the first 13 years of the company’s operations, profits before depreciations were positive throughout the entire period. When the long-term costs of maintaining and renewing ships was being delayed or avoided all together in the short run, it was possible to cover the variable short-term costs. But over the long term, the ships fell into disrepair and needed renewal and this was not budgeted. And, the depreciation of the ships, when taken into account, meant that the company was running at a loss over its entire life.”41
THE NNSL AND THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SHIPPING
Even if the Nigerian government had invested the necessary resources and commitment into the Nigerian National Shipping Line, the NNSL would have still have had to contend with the hegemonic structures of power that shaped the world shipping industry. As Iheduru has argued, developing nations have faced enormous challenges in their latecomer efforts to develop national fleets and to compete in an industry dominated by industrialized nations. West African states, Iheduru claimed, could not keep apace with the revolutionary changes taking place in the world shipping industry from the 1970s onward: technological innovations in the size and quality of ships, the development of new cargo-handling techniques, and fast-changing communication and information systems, to name just a few.42 The organization of the industry into shipping conferences also came with challenges for late-industrializing nations. West African nations entered into these cartels as junior partners and, as such, had little power to influence decisions regarding freight rates or volume. Ekong wrote, “Where the market is characterized by pure oligopoly or cartelized oligopoly on the part of service suppliers while consumers of the services have no appreciable joint action form in the market, the most powerful decides unilaterally for the less powerful on the frequency, adequacy, and rates of the services supplied.”43 At the point in time when the NNSL was founded, shipping conferences decided on the frequency and quantum of services offered, as well as freight rates.44
Despite their junior status, the newly established Ghanaian and Nigerian shipping lines entered willingly into the conference system in order to ensure a share of the trade for their national ventures. Subsequently, a whole new set of challenges emerged when the power and influence of the conferences waned over the course of the 1980s. Iheduru wrote, “Just as West Africans were scrambling to join the conferences, the dominance of this form of organizing the shipping trade globally began to crumble under the weight of the technological revolution in the industry which in turn led to structural changes in the industry.”45 The breakdown in the influence and control of the conferences over the trade meant that West African states suffered a “drastic decline in the ab
ility of their national governments to enforce cargo reservation and flag discrimination policies upon which they depended for their existence.”46 The Nigerian National Shipping Line thus entered into the shipping industry in an era of revolutionary changes with which the company could not keep pace. The result of this, Iheduri argued, was a “series of unethical behaviors adopted by shipping companies in order to break-even.”47
NIGERIAN SEAMEN AND THE NNSL
The sordid history of the NNSL has provided fodder for critics of postcolonial governance in Nigeria, the failed development of the Nigerian maritime sector, and the inequalities of the international shipping industry. What has been largely left out of these studies is the impact that the ill-fated venture had on the lives and livelihood of Nigerian seamen. In turning our attention to the destiny of seamen employed by the Nigerian National Shipping Line during the years of the company’s decline, we can gain a working-class perspective on this history that has been written largely from above. In what follows, it will be seen that the mismanagement of resources in the NNSL had dire consequences for the terms of employment and the working lives of seamen. As resources were increasingly mishandled and plundered, seamen experienced a worsening of conditions on board ships and deterioration in compensation and benefits under the Nigerian national line. According to Iheduru, the managerial instability and administrative vacuum led to a “leakage of authority” within the organization.48 Archival material and interviews with seamen reveal the extent to which this leakage of authority came to bear on the work culture and work regimes on NNSL ships. The dynamic is reflected in the following testimony of a seaman who had worked for both Elder Dempster and the NNSL: