The Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM) has advocated for the Certificate of Competency (CoC) being issued to Nigerian seafarers by the authorities to be authenticated and revalidated every five to ten years to eliminate the incidences of forgery that is now becoming the order of the day in the shipping industry in Nigeria.
The President of the association, Capt. Tajudeen Alao who made this call while speaking with our correspondent in Lagos recently said that Nigerians now go to Liberia and other countries to forge the certificate adding that effort should be intensified in order to get rid of such people.
Alao recalled that the federal government, in 2001, under Ojo Maduekwe as the Minister of Transport, sanitized the industry by cancelling all Certificates of Competencies and took steps to authenticate and revalidate them even as he noted that this should be sustained.
“Few years back, 2014 or 2015, we caught somebody here in Hall Street, Hall Street is behind Rockview Hotels, off Oduduwa, with all the forged certificates, they were printing certificates there, signing my signature, DG NIMASA’s signature, printing Ghana certificates. We handed them over to Police in Apapa, you will be surprise whether they are back there. But I am not bothered because the original is already in our system, so, if you bring certificate that is fake, it will be rejected. The law is clear; it is two year jail term for offenders”, he said.
Speaking on the call to upgrade the certificates being issued in Nigeria to seafarers, he noted that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had taken the right step since the country offer the OOW foreign going even as pointed out that those examined on OOW foreign going were not actually sailing on foreign going ships as they operate in Nigerian waters.
“So, it can only be near coastal then they can upgrade because the sea time you use for your first certification, you cannot use it for your second certification, that one is cancelled. You have to put in another 24 months or 18 months before you can go for the next step and another 18 or 48 months before you can go for next step. So, you cannot use this first one you have used before to sit for another level which is what they are doing. They are forging sea time.
“If they know that Nigeria don’t have national carrier, they know that it has no ship going foreign and you want to present certificates that you have, that’s why people go to Liberia to bring fake certificates”, he added.
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