Nigeria comes off the Coast Guard's port security list after twelve years, and the conditions being lifted reached any ship that had called there in its last five ports

Twelve years, and the reason given is one sentence long.

The Coast Guard is removing Nigeria from its Port Security Advisory. Based on recent assessments, the notice says, it has determined that Nigeria is maintaining effective antiterrorism measures in its ports, and it is accordingly withdrawing the conditions of entry announced in earlier notices. The document went on public inspection at the Federal Register on Tuesday morning, publishes on Wednesday, and takes effect the day it publishes.

What came off

The conditions date from a notice of June 12, 2014, effective a fortnight later. That notice found Nigeria's legal regime, designated authority oversight, access control and cargo control all deficient, said Nigeria had been notified on March 26, 2013 and given 90 days to respond, and said the Coast Guard could not confirm the deficiencies had been corrected.

Twenty-two Nigerian ports and terminals were excepted by name, among them the container and bulk berths at Apapa, the Bonny River and Bonny offshore terminals, the Forcados offshore terminal and the Snake Island free zone. Everything else was in.

The trigger was not the voyage. Conditions applied to any vessel that had visited a non-excepted Nigerian port in its last five port calls, which means a single stop followed a ship across four subsequent ports and into American waters.

Seven things were then required of it. Security Level 2 measures while in Nigeria. Every access point guarded, with total visibility of the exterior on the water side as well as the shore side. Guards drawn from the crew, with more crew put aboard if the work and rest limits would otherwise break, or from outside forces the master and the company security officer had approved. An attempt at a Declaration of Security. Every security action logged. The whole account reported to the Captain of the Port before arrival. And, if a boarding or examination went badly, armed private guards on every access point while the ship lay in an American port, in numbers agreed with the Captain of the Port in advance.

The list, then and now

Sixteen countries were on the advisory when Nigeria joined it in 2014. Twenty-three are on it without Nigeria today: Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, Cuba, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Madagascar, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Timor-Leste, Venezuela and Yemen.

Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia, the other two West African states on the 2014 list, are both gone as well. The Federal Register carries a removal notice for Liberia in December 2020 and one for Cote d'Ivoire in August 2022.

What the notice does not do is show its work. The 2014 imposition named four categories of deficiency and a date on which Nigeria had been told about them. The removal names an authority, a conclusion and nothing in between.