Dr. Reuben Ovia is the Rector of Stars Maritime Academy. In this interview with Anozie Egole, he speaks on the challenges maritime training and the way forward.
“When you send one trainee abroad, you are building their maritime over there, because you are empowering them to purchase more training equipment”
Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey into the sector?
I have been in the maritime industry for quite a long time. From my youth I had to join the Nigerian Navy that was in the 1970s and after working for the navy for so long, I decided to leave the Nigerian Navy. And I happen to find myself in the same industry, but in another fashion entirely and it is a kind of divine direction because my intention was not to come and see the same set up and be running and training people in the same filed. I wanted to go into the oil and gas sector and also see how I can make it, just like any other person but by divine direction, I found myself here and there is nothing I can do about it. And I must confess I am not disappointed.
So, how will you assess the Nigerian maritime industry so far this year?
It happens that the industry has suffered negligence from the beginning (not this year), and wherever there is a setback it takes time for the system to be what it is supposed to be and the Nigerian maritime sector is not an exception. Most times I feel sad when you are talking about the Nigerian maritime sector. As old as the sector is, can you boast of any national shipping line, and we are supposed to be the hub of the West African sub region as far as maritime is concerned. Even in terms of infrastructural development, when was the last port built in Nigeria are there no need for more ports to come in or more activities to take place in the ports. Until we are on the right track and making progress becomes the order of the day, we are yet to begin the journey.
So far, MAN in Oron has graduated more than 24, 000 cadets, what is your assessment of the grandaunts, are you satisfied with the quality of the products?
See, every school is operating according to its capacity, before you can judge Oron, what are the facilities in place. To me the school has been on for a long time and they have been producing cadets till today they have not closed. But before we judge their quality, what is the capacity; your input will determine your output. When you put noting don’t expect anything from there, you can only reap what you sow in any adventure in life. In my little knowledge about Oron, I think they are doing the best they can. That school was set up as nautical school and later they brought in other sectors like Marine Engineering, Boat Building and other departments into it. And also the government is not helping matter, if a school is operating at a certain level and you want to upgrade it there are things you bring in to upgrade it. But here in Nigeria we have a lot of politics and we play a lot of politics with things and that doesn’t help matters. We were told that the Nigerian population is about 190million, if that be the case even a blind man would know that MAN, Oron, cannot cope up with such growing population. And therefore there is need to encourage other institutions to come up in other to cope with the demand for such education and the authorities in the sector are supposed to encourage other institutions to come to grow future seafarers. The encouragement is zero and you are telling me that you are planning for the maritime sector, where will the plan come from. Apart from that if you train these cadets where will they get their sea experience, where is the dockyard, where are the workshops for them to go and get the experience.
What do you think is the effect of the fake discharge certificates that are reportedly being issued to non-seafarers?
If you have a fake discharge certificate, then it means our regulators are to be questioned. Because every discharge paper issued is supposed to be verifiable; in advanced countries they have a method of verifying your documents. Thank God the world is a global village these days you can go into the internet and verify any paper presented by anybody and the true nature of the paper will come out. Except we are still operating the old method of not being able to verify any paper presented by anybody and that should not come in this 21st century, it should be a thing of the past.
What do you have to say about the proliferation of maritime institutions in Nigeria?
When you talk of proliferation, how many of these institutions are operating? A maritime institution is a costly venture. Though everything in life starts small and from there it grows up, but you have to first of all look at the intention of the people, what direction are they going, are they sincere as far as setting up a real maritime institution is concerned, where are they starting from. And what is the future for them to grow just like setting up any institution. There are government agencies that handle the establishment of higher institutions and they have parameter for those who want to establish these institutions to follow. And I know one of them is to look at the set up and find a way of expanding the set up in the future; to make it meaningful and also monitor the institution to know whether they are complying with the rules and regulations. If anybody has certified such conditions, is it right to call such institutions fake institutions. Like I said earlier, yes we should welcome a new establishment to train seafarers, but there should be a body where these institutions should register that will monitor theiroperations. And once in a while the government on their own can go about visiting these institutions to see what they are doing., the ones they know that are not meeting the standard they can advise them accordingly.
Do you think the government is doing enough in the area of developing human capacity in the maritime sector?
If you ask me, I will say No. Let’s be honest to ourselves in most trainings, the government is looking outside to train Nigerians,why can’t the government look inside, look at some of these institutions, encourage the ones that need encouragement and then redirect. When you send one trainee abroad, you are building their maritime over there, because you are empowering them to purchase more training equipment, why can’t you encourage the ones at home that will train your citizens forever. Why can’t we reason the other way round and learn from there because it is a gradual process. What is this clamour for training abroad for, I am not happy with that at all, MAN, Oron is a federal government institution, you left your own institution and sent your citizens abroad under the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP). I am talking about the government institutions themselves. Which means your condemning your own institutions, we should be patriotic and realistic and also learn to encourage ourselves to grow.
Are you saying that they should scrap the NSDP?
I am telling you, it means why a government should gather Nigerians and send them abroad to the detriment of their own institutions that they are regulating. This means you are saying that the food you are cooking is not good enough, that is why you are sending your students to go and eat outside.
What is the latest about the association of rectors of maritime institution?
Well, there is an Association of Government Approved Maritime Academies (AGAMA). The association has been formed and appointments have been made, but due to the nature of the job there have not been regular meetings. The association appointed their leaders and some of them are still serving Captains working outside and that created a gap for lack of constant meetings that is why the activities have not been known so much outside. To be candid with you, they have not exerted their own influence because people in the industry do not know them. Knowing them is supposed to add to the progress in the industry.
Talking about your institution, why did you choose to site it here, knowing that it is a maritime institution?
You see, maritime training is of various arms and the first set of training is the class room training. Even if you are to be taken to the ocean, you are to be taken to the swimming pool first before the ocean. It is after haven overcome the phobia of water in a swimming pool, that you can enter the real water. Moreover, judging by the magnitude of the size we want this is the best place to get it. Irrespective of where we are we have regular excursion or visitation to the ports to get our students familiarized with the environment they are about to venture into. We go for excursion twice a year to the ports for them to see things for themselves. Our unique selling points are competency and discipline we don’t compromise on that.
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