To say that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has not grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years is an understatement.
As revealed in the three-year score card of the current Director General, Doctor Bashir Jamoh, Nigeria has been removed from the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB’s) Red List with considerable reduction in piracy cases in the nation’s waters.
These are in addition to notable achievements in the area of shipping and training; two score cards among others is the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) come second quarter of this year and various training to gainfully employ the youths of Nigeria as well as boost security on the sea.
NIMASA was established by an Act of Parliament (The NIMASA Act 2007) purposely instituted for safety and security as well as to promote the development of Indigenous Commercial Shipping in International and Coastal Shipping Trade.
Jamoh took over the leadership of the agency three years ago and soon has impeccable achievements to his credit.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Cognisance that the security of the maritime domain is very critical to the day-to-day operation of the sector as it helps to boost investors’ confidence; key accomplishments in this regard under the current dispensation include the signing into law of the SPOMO Act by Mr. President, the launch of the Deep Blue Project, the significant reduction in piracy and kidnappings.
It also includes the arrests and successful prosecution of criminals, the establishment of a Regional Maritime Collaboration Forum to tackle insecurity, and Nigeria’s removal from IMB’s Red List.
NIMASA stated that the project was aimed at establishing a sustainable architecture for improved maritime safety and security through increased monitoring and compliance enforcement within Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), with a view to effectively tackle the challenges of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Classified into three with over 254 personnel drawn from military and paramilitary organisations. These are; Marine, Land and Air Assets.
The Marine Assets are two Special Mission Vessels (DB Abuja and DB Lagos) and 17 Fast Intervention Boats.
The Air Assets are three Special Mission Helicopters, two Special Mission Aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) while the Land Assets are 17 Armored Vehicles.
The facilities are Command, Control, Computer, Communication and Intelligence (C4i) Centre, Training Facilities (Shooting Range, C4i Training Centre etc.).
Also there was various training for all personnel in the Deep Blue project on the assets and facilities.
Thanks to the interoperability of the Deep Blue assets as the effective implementation is already contributing to reduction in the piracy cases with only one piracy case as at May 2022, six cases in 2021 from 35 cases in 2020 and in 2019 respectively.
As Maritime agency saddled with responsibility of safety in the industry, NIMASA observed that shipping is critical to global trade, yet it is the most vulnerable in terms of safety explaining the reason the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention to ensure the safety of those involved.
Consequently, empowered by enabling legislation, NIMASA takes this as a critical aspect of its job to ensure safety of ships and those on board, through proper enforcement of maritime safety conventions.
The critical aspect of shipping development encompasses fleet expansion, shipbuilding and ship repairs. Shipping is responsible for over 90 per cent of international transportation of goods that sustain the global supply chain, which is a significant component of the global economy, enhancing import and exports of goods and services.
NIMASA was poised to advance shipping by ensuring a conducive environment for commercial shipping and encouraging more indigenous participation in the global shipping trade.
Still under the Jamoh led NIMASA, the disbursement of the long awaited CVFF got Presidential approval for disbursement.
The Primary lending institutions (PLI) have been appointed and met with Jamoh and disbursement is likely to take effect in the second quarter of 2023.
MARITIME SAFETY
“The Federal Executive Council (FEC) at the end of the last quarter of 2021 approved the wreck removals from Badagry axis up to the Tincan Island and the project has gone very far.
“Again, in the first quarter of 2022, FEC approved the removal of the entire wrecks also in the other zones of Nigeria, comprising Western zone with headquarters in Lagos, Eastern zone with headquarters in Port Harcourt and then Central zone headquarters in Warri. All these projects have achieved major milestones.
“We engaged the Nigerian Navy Naval Dockyard in Lagos to repair our operational vessels, Millennia 1 and Millennium 2. Today both vessels and five others are almost ready for deployment for enforcement purposes. This will also enhance our search and rescue operation, port and flag state administration amongst others.
“In order to attend to the emergencies that may occur after a Search and Rescue Operations, the Agency has built two brand new Search and Base clinics of international standard at Azare Crescent, Apapa and Kirikiri.
“We are hopeful to commission it soon. The hospital is not for NIMASA or Nigeria, but the original Regional States, NIMASA in charge of nine countries in terms of Search and Rescue.
“The hospital is of high international standard, we hope to treat all calibers of patients locally, and internationally, with the state of the art equipment the facility will possess, when completed.
“In the area of our Flag and Port State Administration, at the inception of the administration, there was no single vessel for enforcement. Today, we have built seven brand new bullet proof boats and we expect them to have completed the building.
“They are being built in Spain, and we are hoping that before the end of March, we will receive and commission the vessel.
“As soon as the vessels are commissioned, there will be enhanced enforcement performance; and we plan to divide the use of the vessels; not only in Lagos, but also to other zones of the Agency. All these will cater for the issue of safety.
MARITIME SECURITY
“Before 2019, we did not have law, separate law that tried the offenders and criminals that we arrested who were involved in piracy and kidnapping.
“Therefore, we tried to get this formal Act Suppression of Piracy and other Maritime Related Offences (SPOMO) Act signed by Mr. President in June 2019. As of today we have secured convictions under this Act. This has also served as a deterrent to would-be criminals.
TRAINING
“To further deter these criminalities on the waterways and make our youths gainfully employed, the Agency engaged the Marine Litter Marshals Usually;
“In the area of education, the Agency introduced the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP). The Nigerian NSDP development programme is a capacity development programme.
“Now in order to ensure that we do not forget our own training institution in Nigeria, we have improved our interface with the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron. The Agency’s statutory funding of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in Oron has been on point since 2020.
“We have Simulators, among other state of the art facilities, and the funding by NIMASA has been unhindered. This is in addition to other private maritime institutions, the private ones like Charkins, they are now also coming up with a lot of accreditation of diplomas and other short-term certificates that we are doing locally, saving foreign exchange that we are having.
“In addition to this initiative, the Agency created skill acquisition centres across six geopolitical zones. For the South-West we have Lagos, in the South-East we have Anambra, for South-South we have Bayelsa, for North-East, we have Maiduguri, Borno state; for North-West we have Kaduna State, for North Central we have Kwara.
“So all these skill acquisition centres have the capacity of training younger Nigerians on different aspects of professionalism under that. This is to help trim the number of this criminality in our own territorial waters.
“Records therefore show that from the third quarter of 2021 until date, we have never recorded one single attack in our own territorial waters,” NIMASA highlighted.