By Joy Odor – Reportcircle News
A sweeping €12 million European Union–backed security and performance overhaul has been unleashed on some of Africa’s most strategic sea gateways with Lagos firmly on the front line of a four-year battle to secure trade corridors, defeat port crime and turbocharge regional commerce.
The high-impact initiative, known as SCOPE Africa Securing Corridors, Ports and Exchanges in Western and Central Africa was officially launched in Lomé, Togo, after a two-day high-level seminar that drew more than 100 power players from governments, port authorities, regional bodies, private sector operators and technical partners across West and Central Africa.
The launch took place under the watch of Stanislas Baba, Togolese Government Secretary-General, signaling the political weight behind a project now positioned as one of the most aggressive port security and performance interventions ever rolled out in the region.
At the centre of the EU-funded intervention are nine strategic ports identified as critical arteries of African trade and regional stability:
Lomé (Togo)
Douala and Kribi (Cameroon)
Praia (Cape Verde)
Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo)
Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire)
Libreville (Gabon)
Monrovia (Liberia)
Lagos (Nigeria)
Dakar (Senegal)
These ports sit directly on priority land and sea corridors mapped out by the African Union, regional economic blocs and the EU’s Global Gateway strategy, making them high-value targets for both economic growth and transnational crime.
Financed by the EU and jointly implemented by Expertise France and Enabel, the SCOPE Africa project is engineered to deliver deep, structural reforms across port systems that have long been plagued by security gaps, congestion, weak crisis response and skills shortages.
The intervention is built on five major pillars:
Enforcing international security and safety standards
Strengthening emergency response and crisis management
Upgrading professional skills and specialised port training
Deepening regional cooperation and intelligence-sharing
Building and consolidating regional coordination platforms
For Nigeria’s Lagos port Africa’s busiest maritime hub the programme is expected to sharpen port surveillance, reduce security vulnerabilities and improve trade turnaround time.
Participants were taken beyond conference rooms and PowerPoint slides into the heart of real port operations with a technical visit to the Autonomous Port of Lomé.
There, delegates examined live security infrastructure, cargo handling systems and crisis response structures a practical demonstration of what SCOPE Africa is expected to replicate and scale across the region.
One of the most strategic outcomes of the seminar was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between SCOPE Africa and the Regional Maritime University, Accra.
The deal opens the door to a new wave of specialised training, certification and professional development for port and maritime workers across West and Central Africa a move experts say could permanently lift operational standards.
As the curtains fell on the Lomé summit, participants issued a unified declaration of commitment to drive the SCOPE Africa agenda forward.
Their mission is clear: to transform vulnerable ports into resilient, secure and globally competitive trade hubs.
For the European Union, the project is not merely about infrastructure protection it is a direct investment in Africa’s trade future, supply-chain resilience, and economic sovereignty.
For countries like Nigeria, it represents a rare convergence of security funding, professional capacity building and regional cooperation at a time when port efficiency is increasingly tied to national economic survival.
With €12 million now locked in and the clock ticking on a four-year delivery timeline, the race to secure Africa’s maritime lifelines has officially begun and Lagos is right at the centre of the storm
