The Nigerian Merchant Navy and Water Transport Senior Staff Association is a union representing all seafarers in Nigeria. In this interview with Shipping Position Daily; Assistant Editor, Dapo Olawuni, president of the union, Engr Mathew Alalade said that Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron is not well-funded to issue certificates that are up to global standard. He also said that Nigerian seafarers currently languishing in prisons are the major cause of their own woes.
“We have said it times without numbers that it should a Coast Guard or any name they give to it, to supplement the effort of Navy and Marine Police
“As a seafarer, when you are going onboard, you should let your union be aware”
What steps have your union taken to help out the seafarers in prison?
The best the union can do as our Corporate Social Responsibility is to visit them, but I must confess to you that we only take steps on our financial members, we are handicapped, but we have a unit that is responsible for them and that is the shipping zonal council. However, in our membership drive, we recently went there to visit them; the shipping zonal council have been to the prison to visit also, within themselves as officers, they have a forum they called 'The Concerned Seafarers' they are also taking steps through individual contributions to free their colleagues. Our own recent visit was just was in solidarity with them and to hear their plight and see what could be done, some of them found themselves in prison for no just cause. For example, some of them were arrested over ship documents that were not accurate, meanwhile this is supposed to be between the ship owner and master of the vessel, they are the ones handling transaction and documentation, so why are the other crew members being arrested? They are not responsible in most cases for these offenses, unless they are found to be engaging in other illegal activities.
Apart from the fact that we stand for our financial members, they would not delve into these kinds of contracts because MLC 2006 is for the welfare of the seafarers and it is a tripartite thing, once you are going onboard, your union must be involved, the government and the ship owner must also be involve . But in most cases now, it is only the ship owner that does this responsibility, you don't see the government or the union and this is why their cases are being complicated like that.
By saying financial members of the union, you mean those paying their dues to you?
That is correct.
Have you rescued those ones from prison?
They don't have any issue, none of them is in prison, if you are paying your dues, it means you are compliant with the MLC 2006, so none of our financial members have these problems.
The concerned seafarers within their forum were able to get the services of a lawyer to fight for the imprisoned seafarers, the forum is for all seafarers including myself, but when it comes to the union, you must be a financial member; in the union, everybody is a member, but until you are involved financially, then we will recognize you, it means you must have a company and NIMASA must know you, it is a tripartite thing, but if you don't do this and you want to play smart, then you face the consequences. As a seafarer, when you are going onboard, you should let your union be aware, don't let anybody intimidate you that they would sack you for going to the union, it is the union that will bail you out when you run into problems, the employer will abandon you, these are the seafarers who are suffering today.
You said the union is financially handicapped, please explain
Yes, for example, some members are paying their dues here now, should I go ahead and use it for another purpose? My members will challenge me and even impeach me, so I am very careful. So the extent we can go is to pay the seafarers a visit and do our social responsibility by praying with them and advising them on what to do.
How would you rate the compliance level of the MLC 2006 since it came into force?
The compliance level is nothing compared to the number of officers we have in Nigeria, I must confess to you that the compliance level is just about 30 percent, somebody asked us to do a programme and orientate our members but I replied him that they are aware of this convention, when it came into force in 2013, Nigeria was a signatory there and we sensitized our members, maybe what we will do now is to re-orientate them, it is not that they were not sensitized, but because they want to make a fast one, that is why they want to cut off the union and take a job, at the end of the day, they found themselves where they shouldn't.
The master mariners recently raised an alarm on fake mariners; do you also have this challenge?
In all organizations and professions, we have the fake and the genuine, it is no longer a new thing, the master mariners should sanitize that sector if they felt that some people are rubbishing their profession, it behooves on them to sanitize it, it is a normal thing to see fake people around; who want to make a fast and quick business without going to the right channel. For example, rather than for a qualified ship superintendent to manage your vessel, you just go out there and employed anybody because you don’t want to pay the requisite fee, employ a master mariner or a first class marine engineer to manage your ships, you just get anybody, I believe the there is need for the sector to be sanitized.
On the implementation of Cabotage law, how much has the monitoring task force recently constituted achieved?
The Cabotage implementation to an extent is coming up but not yet fully, however the committee is working.
Can we say they are working when we have not seen any results; our waters are still dominated by foreigners on board ships?
That you see foreigners onboard does not mean that they cannot be replaced or that our people are not qualified, foreigners onboard can be in specific areas, there are specialized areas where foreigners are allowed, they are to train Nigerians within two years to be able to meet up with that kind of expertise. Apart from these, some Nigerian seafarers are very selective, when you place advert, they would ask you if its tanker or offshore job, when you place an advert and they refused to take the job, what do you expect the owner of the vessel to do? He would go ahead and employ foreigners.
How can Nigeria improve our standard of seafarers?
First, our institutions must be upgraded to be issuing licenses more than what they are doing now, let there be training for foreign going tickets and not just local, shipping technologies are now going higher. So, the schools should be funded well in order to follow the trend and issue international certificates, the foreigners go to higher institutions that are highly technical than our own, their living conditions must also be alright, not that Nigeria does not have qualified seafarers but most of them are working outside the country, somebody that has gone outside the country to school, you expect him to come and work here with the salary scheme that is not okay , most of them are Far East, Singapore and so on, doing fine there, the living condition and standard pay here (in Nigeria) is discouraging.
What is your assessment of the security on our waters so far this year?
The government is getting the report day in, day out, there has been a high trend of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, and so the government in their policies knows what to do. Naturally, when celebrations are coming like this, the level of criminality on the waterways increases, and we have said it severally that communities around the riverine areas should be empowered, piracy is perpetrated by idle hands. The cause of the problem is in two folds; first is unemployment, and secondly is poor security. In Nigeria, we know that the constitutional responsibility of the Navy is to protect the territorial waters, the inland waterways is not their duty; so they cannot even cover it. We have said it times without number that it should a Coast Guard or any name they give to it, to supplement the effort of Navy and Marine Police, sometimes, the illegality is not caused by unemployment, there are some people who don’t want to work, all they need is quick money.
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