The recent story credited to the Nigerian Merchant Navy Officers and Water Transport Senior Staff Association is about the best affirmation that relevant government apparatuses are winning the war against sea robbery in Nigeria.
According to the association’s president; Engineer Matthew Alalade, the rate of attack on fishing trawler vessels and smaller tankers on Nigerian waters has reduced.
The recent story credited to the Nigerian Merchant Navy Officers and Water Transport Senior Staff Association is about the best affirmation that relevant government apparatuses are winning the war against sea robbery in Nigeria.
According to the association’s president; Engineer Matthew Alalade, the rate of attack on fishing trawler vessels and smaller tankers on Nigerian waters has reduced.
Buttressing this position, Engr Alalade who leads a body that has lost many of its members in the immediate past top sea robberies, confirmed that sea robbery, molestation and maiming of seafarers and other crew has reduced.
He disclosed further that, in the last three years, cases of attack on members of his association have dropped a situation the merchant navy association boss said has created an enabling environment for the operators.
Engineer Alalade should know because he leads a body of senior seafarers. Members of the association man fishing trawlers, crew boats and coastal tankers, all of which dot our internal waters.
At the peak of attack son this class of water crafts, these seafarers became the most vulnerable.
When compared with facts about attacks in previous years, one can safely agree with the merchant navy officers association.
According to the Denmark-based maritime security intelligence company; Risk Intelligence, there were 58 recorded piracy-related maritime security incidents in the Nigerian inshore and coastal waters in 2010. This is a remarkable reduction when compared with the 91 recorded incidents for 2009 and 114 incidents for 2008.
According to the group, in 2010, a total of 18 attacks involving kidnap-for-ransom were recorded.
Global reports and local findings are in agreement that maritime insecurity in Nigeria is driven by different factors along different parts of the shoreline. Off Lagos and the South-West of Nigeria, piracy has traditionally been of a subsistence character with relatively small shore-based groups preying on ships as they approach Lagos.
Subsistence piracy and fisheries disputes are common occurrences along the Bakassi, Cross-Rivers and Akwa Ibom coasts where attacks intensified, largely as a result of the unresolved Bakassi Peninsula issue and corrupt Nigerian licensing practices for fishing vessels.
There are confirmations that the main targets of attacks are Nigerian-flagged, but foreign owned, fishing vessels.
According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), on January 4, 2009, pirates hijacked the French ship Bourbon Leda with five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one Cameroonian and one Indonesian on board. Also, on January, 21, gunmen attack the diesel tanker MT Meredith and kidnapped a Romanian, while in the same month
Pirates also boarded an Exxon tanker MV Ngoni and stole some items and also seized a tugboat.
Another outstanding attack was the one involving the attack on the Turkish ship Ilena Mercan from where two crew were kidnapped.
Similarly, on March 13, 2010, a Chinese fishing vessel was hijacked off the Bakassi Peninsula, where seven fishermen were abducted. The kidnappers demanded a ransom and later released the vessel and its passengers on March 18.
One noteworthy incident of 2010 was the hijack of the product tanker Valle di Cordoba on December 24, 2010 and the theft of 5000 tons of petrol (technically offshore Benin), by supposedly Nigerian pirates.
Also, there was an on MT Halifax along the Port Harcourt coast line.
Before Halfax, MV Igbere was attacked while conveying fuel to an oil production platform at Qua Iboe oil fields and the captain was released after a week in captivity. Before then also, gunmen had attacked a support vessel, MV Wilbert, near OSO platform within ExxonMobil’s oil block and abducted the captain.
At a point in the history of attacks on ships and other water crafts in Nigeria, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) argued that attacks on ships on Nigerian waters had reduced.
But, apparently confronted with facts and figures, the denial game ended and it entered into a tripartite agreement with the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force.
Without equivocation, there has been remarkable reduction in attacks on ships onshore and offshore Nigeria since the collaboration with the Navy started. It is this collaboration that led to the creation a of Maritime Guard command in NIMASA.
We are however not sure that NIMASA is to be commended for the success bei
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