It was a gathering of who is who as stakeholders in the nation’s maritime sector converged on Lagos yesterday to discuss the theme, “Maritime Security: Emerging Threats And Actionable Steps.”
Setting the ball rolling for the discussion, the President of the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria, MARAN, the organizers of the event, Mr. Godfrey Bivbere observed that the resurgence of piracy activities and its security threats in the Gulf of Guinea, GoG in the first half of 2023 became an issue of concern to the association, hence not satisfied with just being an onlooker, also resolved to undertake an informed interrogation of the menace aimed at combating the scourge via an improved and a much more concerted collective will and focus.
Bivbere noted that whereas MARAN recognized past and ongoing efforts corporate bodies including the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Nigerian Navy and their regional counterparts were doing to address issues of piracy and related maritime insecurities in the GOG, it was worried that high profile illegal fishing linked to international syndicate had passed with little or no checkmate.
He added that MARAN was equally worried about the huge statistics in Nigerian crude oil theft; and the concomitant adverse effects it has had on the national economy; which had reportedly led to the gradual but unceasing dwindling economic fortunes of the country.
According to him, “MARAN is also worried about observed dissonance in the collective national effort to combat maritime economic crimes and crude oil smuggling, and call on the federal government and its relevant agencies to improve on coordination. I want to also especially call on the office of the National Security Adviser to the President, to have a firmer grip and supervision of the existing collaboration between state and non-state actors’ roles, in this regard.
“The International Maritime Bureau, IMB report of July 2023 confirmed that the GoG witnessed a surge in maritime incidents in 2023, with five of such incidents in the first quarter and nine in the second quarter. Out of these, 12 were classified as armed robberies and two as piracy, predominantly targeting anchored vessels within the region. In all the incidents, 14 crew members were kidnapped, out of which 8 were abducted from vessels on anchor. Additionally, in two separate hijacks, 31 crew members were taken hostage, communication and navigation equipment were destroyed, and some cargoes were stolen.
“We challenge the Nigeria Government and her regional counterparts to come up with a more workable and result oriented approach to the fight against maritime insecurity in the GOG. We believe that until and unless the international syndicates involved in the menace are confronted, apprehended and regularly exposed, through international collaboration as often happens with local criminals, the situation will not achieve any purposeful deterrence.
“MARAN is unequivocal in its support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to turn around the fortunes of the nation’s maritime domain with the establishment of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, which is sector specific. We envisage that President Tinubu may consider reworking the deterrence clauses contained in the SPOMO Act, to make its intendment more purposeful and business-like.
“MARAN respectfully, wishes to further urge President Tinubu to provide an improved enabling environment for a common and united combat against maritime insecurity through effective harnessing of all available windows, both public and private sector participation.”
On his part, a former President of MARAN and Publisher of Shipping Position Daily, Mr. SESAN Onileimo believed that the threats that the nation observed come as a result of unemployment adding that the amount of unemployed youth that Nigeria had were willing tools for maritime insecurity even as he maintained that the insecurity in the country was also domiciled.
Expressing his doubt that the youths in other parts of the country would go to the Niger-Delta and go to the waters to feed from, he insisted that “There’s a mass of unemployed youth that the society has foisted on us, an idle hand is a willing tool.”
“And I will like to look at this from two angles, there are two categories of unemployed willing youths: the ones trained by NIMASA under its National Seafarers Development Programme who were trained, qualified with or without CoC but waiting to have something to do. They are there, they want to be active, they are the tools that are being used to forment trouble.
“The second leg are those boys and girls who are trained locally, some of them are trained at MAN Oron, but there are those that are trained even in Agege here who wear uniforms so much so like that of the Navy, they are equipped and recruited into that business that has turned out to be a source of threat to our maritime environment.
“I am saying this because in the course of my years as a maritime journalist, I have had a course to interact with a few of them. If you go to Liverpool here, I am sure the Maritime Workers’ Union will bear me witness; the boys and girls who graduated from Oron, who have turned out to be canoe boys, were not trained in Oron to be handling canoe and boats but there is no job for them. These are the same boys who had five years of training but afterwards, there is no job. Take that guy to Niger-Delta, he is ready to do anything for as long as the money is available”, he said.
Also speaking, the President of the Nigerian Indigenous Shipowners Association, NISA, Mr. Sola Adewumi said that Nigeria should work to have a safe sea where one could move on, sail his ship to wherever he wanted to do his business and come back safely. Insisting that there was so much competition at sea,he maintained that the equipment were there but with inefficient people to man them.
He said, “If any of you have had the opportunity of entering the Navy’s situation room known as the Falcon Eye, there’s nothing that happens at sea that they don’t see but you will realize that most of our security agents are engrossed with what will come into their pockets. A situation whereby they do everything to their advantage is one of the reasons why we are having issues.
“What did Lome have that we do not have in Nigeria?This is the question we should just ask ourselves. These people saw our weakness and made sure that their anchorage was secured. It attracts international operators and they started making money out of it. What is the work of our security agencies? And even when arrests are made, are they not made on frivolous excuses? All these things still go to say what is going to be the benefit to me.
“Until we put the benefit of the nation and what the nation will earn overall, I think we are in a better position to protect our waters very well but this era of entitlement, it is our entitlement, we must get it, I think it is part of the issues that we have. And as much as these things are there, we will continue to have a higher cost of bringing vessels to this place. I am of the opinion that if the security agents could work together and there is a good judicial system, I think that Nigeria can achieve a lot.”
For Captain Tajudeen Alao, President of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners, maritime crime is a big business which cannot not be looked at from the angle of Nigeria thing alone but from the global perspective even as he advised the participants at the lecture to sit down as a group, brainstorm and come up with workable proceeding to be presented to the Honourable Minister of Marine and Blue Economy for Implementation.
“Whatever we think is the right thing to do,, there must be procedures and guidelines and once the Minister can make subsidiary legislation, it could go a long way in tackling most of these challenges. The trend now is, if you arrest a ship now engaging in illegal bunkering, you blow it up, does it make sense? The air pollution into the sky, the oil pollution into the ecosystem, you have destroyed the fish in that area and the periwinkles.
“So, there are many things that we do, like my colleague said, you arrest a ship, EFCC don’t know how to manage ship, the ship is there, they are waiting for the Police to go to court, the ship becomes a wreck, then, NPA and NIMASA will devote $2 million to salvage a ship that does not worth more than $300,000. You need a deliberate action and political will to crush crime. The Navy cannot afford to fund maritime security just as it cannot afford to keep the ships at sea with the budget within its disposal hence it found it comfortable relying on the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA to fund most of its operations”, Alao submitted.
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