The Managing Director, Apapa Bulk Terminal Limited (ABTL), Captain Mohammed Bashir has described as a total waste the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) embarked upon by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) recently.
Bashir who made this observation while delivering a paper at the just concluded 2-day Shippers’ Day Celebration/ Exhibition organized by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) in conjunction with the Shippers’ Association, Lagos State (SALS) in Lagos stated that the programme could have achieved its desired result if NIMASA had consulted widely before embarking on the project.
He argued that instead of sending about 2,500 Nigerians to go and study abroad under the NSDP project without plans for where they would be placed for their sea time experience, NIMASA and by extension, Nigerian government would have put some measure in place before sending those students out to study rather than creating a situation where they would complete their studies only to come back frustrated without a job.
According to him,” Cadetship is a long term project, just two year in classroom to learn the terminologies, theories, it is not enough for an officer to be onboard a ship, you need a vessel to actually do the practical and if you don’t have that, then, you are in a major mess. Having spent money on 2,500 cadets, they are all over the world now with no chance of getting a vessel to serve because Nigeria doesn’t have the vessels.
“So, what I was advocating, we have a comparative advantage in oil and gas, at least, the idea is instead of setting up a national shipping line, the national shipping line, Niger Line failed, the reason why it failed apart from all the other minor is because of cargo deflation, there is no cargo in Nigeria to be carried. We are importing cargo almost all the times. So, which cargo are these vessels going to carry and from where to where? That is the major problem.
“So, if you are able to take for example, these small vessels I am talking about, that is how Philippines started, they build up local capacity. If you have 2000 tonnes tanker with about 12 people onboard going from Escravos, Warri, Port-Harcourt to Baro to Lokoja, you are going to have a technical mass of people who are going to be trained.
“Inland or coastal navigation is even the more difficult than ocean navigation, small ship handling is more practical involved, if you buy a few cargo vessels, the vessels can work around. It doesn’t even need to go to America. There is enough cargo to be carried from Morocco to Cape Town, all sorts of cargoes to be shipped.
“Now, you are to create a room onboard a vessel, ship is like sliced bread, you can create the sliced bread in form of a deck to take 50 or 100 cadets to train onboard and they have Nigerian officers onboard who are going to monitor and train them. So, that is the area, if we don’t do that, nothing is going to happen.
Those boys who are coming back are not earning any money, they are frustrated, I have met quite a number of them, I have so many CVs in my office now, they are looking for job and they don’t even have any experience. The 2 years is nothing, it is equivalent to ND. You need to get your practical experience and then go and do your HND and then you start doing your certification. It is totally wasting of government fund”.
Send your news, press releases/articles to info@primetimereporters.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @reportersinfo and on Facebook at facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526.
