DRY PORTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND NIGERIA

This paper reviews the development of dry ports in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and in Nigeria. In the United Kingdom, P&O developed a group of dry ports at strategic locations close to the main population and industrial centres. They were branded "containerbases" and became widely recognized as models for dry port development elsewhere. Inland Container Depot (ICD) operation in Nigeria started in 1979 and two ICDs have been successful. However, the legislative framework in the 1990s requiring containers to be customs- checked at the port gateway undermined the successful operation of ICDs. More recently, the legal conditions have been changed so that inland terminals can act as the sole point of departure or arrival for containerized consignments. Accordingly, the Government of Nigeria, through the Shippers Council and other relevant bodies, has launched a fresh programme to construct dry ports adjacent to the main inland cities in order to offer modern logistics services to match those available elsewhere.