Infrastructural development, key to success of Supply Chain in Nigeria—Dr Ugboma
By Cyriacus Nnaji:
Dr. Ogochukwu Ugboma, an Associate Professor, Lagos State University (LASU) and Acting Dean, School of Transport and Logistics of the same institution, has stressed on the need for infrastructural development as an essential ingredient for the success of supply chain in Nigeria
Dr. Ugboma made her stance known at the 5th CARISCA Supply Chain Summit which was held at the Marriott Hotel, Ikeja GRA, Lagos State, Nigeria, between July 16 and 18, 2025.
Speaking on what the government can do to make supply chain work in Nigeria, the newly appointed Acting Dean of the School of Transport and Logistics (LASU) said that the first thing government should do is to build capacity in order to have adequate manpower to address the myriads of challenges facing Supply Chain.
She said “First of all, let me start from my own turf, and the turf is in capacity building. So what is needed is what Government has already done through their collaboration with the National University Commission (NUC) in developing the curriculum in logistics and supply chain. That curriculum has passed the NUC and that is why you see we have the Bachelor of Science in Logistics and Supply Chain, because we need to train professionals in the field to address the myriads of challenges that are being faced in the logistics and supply chain right now.
“You heard from the speakers what it takes to move goods from one African country to another. Three years ago a comparison was made between moving a container from the Lagos Port to the northern parts; It was found out that it was more expensive taking a container from Lagos Port to the Northern parts than bringing same container from China to Lagos Port, so these are logistic challenges that need government intervention,” Ugboma stated.
She went further to offer more solutions to address the supply chain problems, saying that the government can also intervene in form of incentives. “And these interventions can come in form of incentives, infrastructural development, it can come in form of having linkages of these infrastructure, integration of these infrastructure. If we can have our rail line working and these rail lines integrated with the ports, we don’t need to see trucks on the roads, we don’t have to see lives taken away because bad trucks that are not good enough, that climb the bridge they won’t be able to move forward and they roll back and kill a lot of innocent people, we won’t have tankers blowing up the Kara Bridge, destroying lots of people’s lives, one particular one that pained me a lot, I think early this year, a couple that just got married, we lost them in that carnage. Ss, infrastructural development is key to the success of supply chain and success of logistics in our country.” he stated.
