Assessment of the Influence of Maritime Piracy and Sea Robbery on Cargo throughput Performance of Nigerian Ports

The study assessed the impact of maritime piracy and sea robbery on the cargo throughput performance of Nigeria ports. The central objective of the study was to determine the significances of the influences of levels of attacks against ships trading in global cum local waters and maritime insecurity induced cargo pilferage levels on the cargo throughput performance of Nigeria ports. The study used secondary data sourced from the Nigerian ports authority, and the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) on the cargo throughput, levels of pirate attacks against ships in local; and global waters, level of cargo pilferages in ports and used for the study. The multiple regression analysis method was used to analyze the dataset obtained using cargo throughput performance of the ports as the dependent variable while global attacks, local attacks and volume of cargo pilfered were used as independent variables. the model showing the effects of maritime piracy and sea robbery attacks on the cargo throughput performance of the Nigerian ports is: CARGOt= 0.729700 +0.0140GLOTAKSt – 0.0921LOTAKSt –0.0003VOCARPt ….. (2). It indicates that a unit increase in attacks in global waters increases the cargo throughput in Nigerian ports by 0.0140 units while a unit increase in local attacks by pirates within the Nigerian territorial waters causes cargo throughput performance of Nigerian ports to decrease by 0.0921 units. Similarly, a unit increase in cargo pilferage associated with maritime insecurity in Nigeria ports causes the cargo throughput performance of the ports to decrease by 0.0003 units. It is also found that that there is a significant impact of the level of maritime piracy/sea robbery on the cargo throughput performance of the Nigerian seaports.