This site is dedicated to preserving the archival information of Nigeria’s former national carrier, the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL). It also, by extension, dwells on Nigeria’s maritime industry and the activities of the former employees and stakeholders of NNSL who now operate in the marine, maritime or other walks of life in Nigeria. The concept is a post-doctoral outcome of the work by Dr. Edmund Chilaka titled The Rise, Fall and Liquidation of Africa’s Pioneer Carriers: Nigerian National Shipping Line and Black Star Line.

During an academic tour by postgraduate students of the Department of Geography, University of Lagos, to the Liverpool John Moore’s University in February 2020, facilitated by the Centre for Port and Maritime History, the Director, Prof. Nick White, demonstrated an online archive which they had set up for the former Elder Dempster Line. The last managing director of the Elder Dempster Line in Nigeria, Patrick Toosey, also gave a lecture on the patterns of cargo throughput between the UK and West Africa in the preceding 50 years. The inspiration for this online archive flowed from those interactions.

We are now engaged in conducting oral interviews of former staff of the company as a way of preserving the legacy of their careers in an archive that will be open to students, researchers and interested members of the shipping community. The project will collaborate with all stakeholders who may have useful inputs to make in bringing the aims and objectives of the archive to reality.