Mr Mkpandiok Ante Mkpandiok is the Acting Registrar, Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN),Oron in Akwa Ibom State. In a recent media chat in Lagos, he revealed how he rose to become the acting Rector of the foremost nautical institution in Nigeria and the challenges that have befallen the academy for a while. Our correspondent Roland Ekama was one of the journalists who spoke with the Rector.
“I believe there will be no hostility again”
How did you become acting Rector MAN, Oron?
I never dreamt that I would rise to the position of heading the academy or even be in a place like this to handle an institution like this. People talk about child of circumstance, may be my own case is different. I grew up as an administrator in the academy, I found myself were I am as a result of hard work. I found myself growing up in the school, at a point in time I became the most senior administrative officer to the Registrar. Let me address you from the ugly side of the academy, you might have heard it started some years back when two rectors of the institution died under strange circumstances. Along the line, I was also persecuted, but I have a family. I would not want my wife to be running around for the children if I die. I took counsel from my pastor on the things happening in the institution. He advised me to go ahead and complete what I started. I decided to come back home after working in the north and west, to serve in my home state and I am being threatened. It does not speak well.
I felt I had to save my job because I can't belong to a system where people don't believe in me. At a point, I even wrote a letter on my plan to leave; it was an old friend who advised me not to retire. The mantle of running the academy came to me in December 2015, after the death of the then- Acting Rector. I was brought in to take over, I was just not myself because before he travelled he handed over to me and after his death I had to carry on with the handing over. We have gone through several challenges, but the current management is very dedicated, contrary to what we have been hearing in the press, we work together. We have management and academic board meetings, thus nobody is saying that they don't believe in this system. The academy is moving forward despite the sad events, issues and many problems, I still thank God for giving me the capacity in driving the affairs of the institution.
What are the challenges that you have seen, since you started acting as Rector of MAN Oron?
One of the challenges we have is the issue of the indebtedness to contractors. Some of them have taken us to court, written petitions to the Presidency, some have written to Inspector General of Police, ICPC as well as EFCC and National Assembly; accusing us of corruption. We don't want to defend what they said because if you are owed and you are not paid, you can do anything that comes to your mind. As soon as the former rector died, all contractors came that we should pay them and I pleaded with them to give us some time, so we could look into the financial records and see how much we owe them and then look at the way to pay, when we have the money. I want to say something about budgetary provision of the academy. It takes a lot to run a maritime academy and I am saying this from the point of experience, but in Nigeria we want to take first in everything. I don't think Nigeria has paid the price to make the maritime academy work. Otherwise, if NIMASA were not there, how would you give the kind of budget we get? When we go to federal account we are told that we are not supposed to come to the federal account and that we have to go to NIMASA. We are tied to only NIMASA. The kind of equipment we need is costly and sophisticated and we need funds to cope. The money we get from NIMASA is not up to N5 Billion, how do you want us to cope? For some time now, we have had challenges over navigation equipment. We claim to be the giant of Africa, but in today maritime education and training we don't have any equipment. How do you train world-class seafarers without such equipment? The Regional Maritime University in Accra came into existence with MAN Oron ,today they can boast of these equipment, but our academy is still struggling with a mere functional venue. It may not totally be a management problem, but it’s the government. Most of the cadets end up not doing their profession; they cannot make progress in their seafaring career because there is no opportunity for them to go on board a ship and this is why we are lacking maritime professionals in the industry.
What is the current issues affecting seatime experience for cadets?
In maritime education and training, the emphasis is not on paper qualification but we have what we called Certificate of Competency. How competent have we been? This competency is part of what is required to know what you can do. This is why even if you have a job today and you have worked for some time, before you make progress, you have to go back to sea and stay for 24months,when you come back you take your exams. That is how you can make progress but where are the facilities here in Nigeria?
What is the best ways out of these challenges?
The Nigerian government, especially through the National Assembly should address the issue and assist the sector to grow. They ought to have come out with legislations that compel ship owners doing business in Nigeria to at least take two cadets for sea training. Whenever I look at our sector, it seems like a mockery of our effort in the past. Let us not forget that if we want to take Nigeria to a world class standard in this business, we must do something about the seafarers. The few cadets that have left the academy for abroad are making waves there. We had the privilege to have read the letter of recommendation of a shipping company in Singapore commending a cadet trained in the academy. He was offered employment, but today I don't think the story is the same. The current management has decided to go back to the drawing board to see what actually happened over the years and make our input to the government to ensure that things are done rightly. This is what we have geared up efforts to achieve presently. We are trying to make all stakeholders involved in what I call rebranding. You would have to rebrand your products to be able to sell it faster. We have received several disheartening messages from industry stakeholders, but we want Nigerians to give us two years and see the kind of cadets we will graduate. I will not sit in my house and allow this crop of Nigerians to be wasted; not trained and put papers in their hands. We want them to be certified mariners, so we want the government to assist us especially through funding and the money will be used for the purpose it is meant for. Our mission today is to make the academy conducive for everybody, irrespective of where you come from. We want to leave a good story behind at the end of our tenure and we believe that in a very short period of time, we would make a commendable achievement such that even the cadets that will pass under us will know that they have been to school.
What is your view about vessel acquisition for the training of students?
The kind of ship we want is called is voyage going vessel and not for near coastal or fishing trawlers. If we have a training vessel, that should not stop the stakeholders such as shipping firm and ship owners from taking our cadets and place them aboard vessels . They would have to do this as a form of Corporate Social Responsibility to complement our efforts.
Few years ago, the academy cut the admission quota by 52%, has anything been done to increase the number of cadets being admitted into the academy?
We didn’t cut the intake, but when we went to JAMB, JAMB gave conditions; of course when we were handling the admission ourselves, by the Grace of God we used to make sure that every state that presented candidates are represented in the admissions. But it’s always surprising when people seem to look at the academy as a sectional institute; that it is bias in this matter. That is not true. By the Grace of God, I have been involved in the admission exercise since 1993, so I am well informed about the academy. We used to give 50 per cent of admission to states; so we don’t side line anyone. Moreover, we have industrial concession; if these criteria are used for admission, who is being undermined or discriminated? Nobody! But if someone is not qualified; that is the only reason he or she will not gain admission. In fact, in those days we used to admit those who did not pass the entry exam to represent their states, so long you have the entry requirements.
Sir, you said something about actions that should be taken for the good of the academy, please what do you expect from the Federal Government?
You have heard it before, but let me repeat myself, without training there is no shipping. What we need is a training vessel to facilitate the second phase of the training programme. That will bring many steps further. If we have adequate arrangement or plans for the second phase of the training of the cadets, that is, for them to go for the Mandatory seatime , we will be achieving more. Many of our ex-cadets need 12 or 18 months on board vessels, without that they cannot make progress. We have over 3,000 of them waiting; who have not had that experience and they cannot become Officers. Something needs to be done about this.
Some stakeholders have advocated that the Turkish MoU be revisited instead of starting all over, what do you have to say?
Yes I agree, it should be revisited and a counterpart funding provided.
What is the update on your degree-awarding status drive?
I think I explained it during the last meeting. Like I said, what is involved is there will be upgrading of Curriculum and review of same including the facilities as well as the manpower.
Within this short period, how have you interface the academy community, the non-academic staff, Oron community, and academic staff to achieve harmony for learning and teaching?
Obviously, there is harmony for now. By God’s grace, I am doing my best to appease the warring community to make sure that they sheath their swords, because they are only hosting the academy for the nation and if they are at war, the academic activities will not continue to exist in that place. So, they are listening to me and I believe there will be no hostility again.
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