When Nigeria launched its Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy in 2023, it felt like we were finally ready to shift our economic gaze beyond oil to a new and unfamiliar terrain. President Bola Tinubu appeared serious about his economic diversification efforts, having just delivered a campaign promise. The ministry was tasked with creating a blue economy policy, but went AWOL for two years. The ministry then returned in March 2025 and unveiled the long-awaited policy. With such a long gap in policy development, the questions remain: Are we ready to make this purported shift? Is Nigeria’s blue economy just another tagline, a lazy attempt at diversification, as we have continuously done with the agricultural sector, or is it the real deal?
The blue (marine) economy represents aspects of the Nigerian economy that deal with fisheries, shipping, offshore energy, coastal tourism, and biotechnology. If judiciously harnessed, it could create millions of direct and indirect jobs, increase the national GDP by a landslide, and strengthen food, climate, and livelihood resilience.
However, to reap the benefits of the blue economy, it is essential to learn from places where it has been done successfully, with a similar economic size to Nigeria. Nowhere else would the search light go than South Africa’s ocean economy policy called “Operation Phakisa”. Phakisa means “hurry up; act fast” in Sesotho, a South African language. The initiative was launched in 2014, 11 years before Nigeria’s framework in 2025. The policy offers vital lessons that we must embrace to better the Nigerian blue economy prospect.
Firstly, the world recognises the importance and the urgency of shifting towards the blue economy. The South African ocean economy principle “Operation Phakisa” teaches us that the shift must be quick and urgent; the policy must emphasise immediate action. We cannot afford to move as slowly as we currently do. The two-year policy development wait is a costly lag. In the fast-growing and rapidly changing blue economy, time is of the essence; shipping routes are competitive, fishing stocks are depleting, and marine investment is increasing globally. Partnerships are being formed, and we can’t afford to miss out. Even so, forming the Blue Economy Ministry in 2023 is already too late. Global conversations on the blue economy started as far back as 2012. The African Union introduced the African blue economy framework in 2018, Namibia in 2017, South Africa in 2014, Kenya in 2018, and fellow oil producer, Angola, in 2024.
To put policy development urgency in perspective, Jacob Zuma, the then-President of South Africa, learnt about the Big Fast Methodology from Malaysia in 2013. He came home to South Africa, and by 2014, a comprehensive economic policy anchored on the blue economy had been developed; it happened in months, not years. Coming up with ours in 2025 is coming late to the party. Thus, we must act faster on the implementation. However, my call for urgency in implementation doesn’t mean cutting corners. It means setting timelines, binding accountability, and ensuring that plans quickly become actions. Otherwise, opportunity vanishes at sea.
Quick policy implementation can only be achieved when we reprioritise the economy away from oil. The world is treating the blue economy as the mainstay of the economic future; the United Nations Commission for Africa refers to the blue economy as the frontier for Africa’s economic renaissance. South Africa anchors its financial future on the blue economy. Nigeria has a lesson to learn here; the country cannot treat the blue economy as an add-on to Nigeria’s economy.
Analysts project Nigeria can generate up to $70bn from its blue economy. Others suggest it could quadruple Nigeria’s GDP from $407bn to $1.5tn. The World Bank values the global blue economy at $1.5tn annually, with projections to double to $3tn by 2030. Making the blue economy the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy repositions Nigeria as a frontrunner in global economic trade. It would bring transformative potential and offer sustainable economic growth that caters to our present and protects our planetary future.
Sustainable economic growth can only be achieved if economic growth is inclusive. Inclusion is the core of the blue economy. Inclusiveness is why the model trumps competing alternative models, such as the brown economy. Every legitimate blue economy model must treat fishing and coastal communities not just as stakeholders but as drivers of the ocean economy. The Africa Integrated Maritime Strategy 2050 and the Blue Governance Framework rightly stress that their participation is essential for the legitimacy of blue economy development. Excluding them risks recreating the militancy and kidnapping that we knew in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. Yet, Nigeria’s current policy relegates them to the sidelines, as passive beneficiaries of training and capacity development rather than active policy shapers.
South Africa’s Phakisa model attempted to bridge this gap and show us how it can be done by establishing “labs” and workstreams, bringing diverse voices (government, private sector, academia, and civil society) into policymaking. Nigeria can adopt and improve this model by learning from the European Union Blue Economy Framework, which places coastal and indigenous communities at the policy table from day one by requiring them to create a Fishing Local Action Group. The groups are responsible for local policy and infrastructure development, with an inclusive funding mechanism.
Thus, if we must be inclusive, urgent and reprioritise, Nigeria’s goals for the blue economy must be clear, achievable and measurable. Measuring goals requires precise monitoring and evaluation frameworks, with clear and specific metrics. The policy must present a summarised version of its theory of change, explaining what change we would see in the economy and the enablers of those changes. While Nigeria’s blue economy policy clearly mentions monitoring and evaluation, there are no clear goals or metrics.
Thus, M&E is just rhetoric, and the impact of the blue economy cannot be measured or even reported. In contrast, South Africa sets a clear benchmark for outcome: more jobs, more investment, and economic growth; it takes it further by producing annual reports on Operation Phakisa and measuring progress against targets yearly. Nigeria can do the same. The goals and key performance indicators for the blue economy must be contained in its policy document, and should go beyond news rhetoric and words of mouth, as we currently have it. That is the only way citizens can hold the ministry accountable for the delivery of their mandates.
Nigeria, today, stands at a crossroad. Coastal erosion is swallowing communities and livelihoods (80 per cent of Lagos’ shoreline has disappeared in the past 50 years), economic pressure is worsening, and oil is no longer a reliable forex earner. We need more than ever to find reliable alternatives, and the blue economy emerges as the only silver lining. The nation must tap into its full potential and take the ocean from underused and overlooked to the transformative resource that it is. However, harnessing the blue economy requires adequate lessons from other nations already doing it well. Operation Phakisa isn’t a perfect model (it has its fair share of criticisms), but it showed that inclusion, urgency, national ambition, and measurable targets can overcome inertia. Nigeria can do more: bringing communities into policymaking, elevating its blue economy to centre-stage, acting quickly, and building anchored plans around clear KPIs.
The sea waves aren’t patient, and Nigeria mustn’t wait either.
• Adebayo, a monitoring, evaluation, research and learning professional, from South Africa
