Captain Taiwo Akinpelumi is the Lagos State Coordinator of Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA). In this interview with Anozie Egole, he spoke about the association, the challenges in the maritime sector and the way forward.
“The Navy wants to take absolute control of policing our territorial waters, the NIMASA will always say that they have collaborated with the Navy, Air-force and other sister agencies”
As a ship owner, what do you think are the challenges with ship ownership in Nigeria?
Well ship ownership in Nigeria has a lot of challenges; of course let’s start with the funds availability. Our banks do not have in-depth knowledge of the specialized nature of shipping, so of course you know that our banks always give out interest with double unit. And vessel is so capital intensive and freights coming in is not something that is commensurate with the huge investment in vessel acquisition. What I mean is for instance, in this part of the world, Nigeria still rate among the countries that actually pay higher rates on ships. So if you consider this you will see that getting fund from the bank, apart from the fact that it is not easy to access funds from the bank because of their limited knowledge of vessel acquisition. You also have the issue of availability of cargoes to contend with. Because a vessel is bought to pay its bills, so when cargoes are not available of course there is not point getting the vessel. We also talk about the inability of our local capacity to be developed over time, so it is actually militating against the improvement in our local tonnage.
Recently, we have had a lot of attacks on our waters by pirates, what would you say is the cause and what’s the way forward?
Piracy constitutes a serious menace on our waters and the way forward is to see how we can actively engage our young labour force; there are so many Niger-Delta militants. There was an interview with Delta state Governor that I monitored where he lamented on the government refusal to follow through with the amnesty programme. So if we have cases of young, agile and able-bodied militants that understand that terrain of our waters, you will see that those people are likely to take up arms to go and hijack ships and all that. Because there is no meaningful job for them, so they will resort to criminal acts like that. So that is really responsible for the piracy we are experiencing.
Again, if you look at these agencies; their responsibilities overlap, for instance the Navy wants to take absolute control of policing our territorial waters, the NIMASA will always say that they have collaborated with the Navy, Air-force and other sister agencies. But the truth is that NIMASA should be given the free hands to actually police the waters as it affects commercial shipping. To safeguard the territorial integrity of Nigeria as it relates to maritime is the function of the Nigerian Navy yes , but when we are talking about securing commercial shipping the ball stops at the table of NIMASA. All these are the things that are affecting the security of our waterways. We will also talk about the influx of foreign vessels into our waters, foreign operators and all that, they come indiscriminately and they have taken over most of our local jobs. So these are factors militating against the security of our maritime domain.
You said something about lack of cargoes for local ships, how do you think these cargoes can be generated?
You have different types of cargoes; we have the transportation of goods, provision of services and all that, there are some vessels that deal on specialized jobs. For instance let’s talk about wet cargo, you see that it is only in this country that we are not part of what we produce, we are not the one even shipping what we produce. For instance we are talking about crude oil, how many ship owners are involved in lifting crude oil, zero. So because our crude oil is supposed to be lifted on the basis of Cost Insurance and Freight (CIF) but what we have over the years is our crude oil being lifted on Free On Board (FOB) basis. So when this is happening, we produce crude oil and we allow foreign companies to come and buy, they are the ones to insure and are responsible for everything, what it means is that it has taken away a lot of jobs from the Nigerian ship owners. What it means is that foreigners will just buy cargo and take it away and the resultant revenue that is supposed to accrue to us are not coming, the multiplier effect is not being felt. For example, you sold a bottle of water to me and asked me to bring my own bottle to carry the water, package it and all that. You see that these are jobs that are supposed to come to us in Nigeria but because we are used to saying, we have crude oil, just come and lift it and these jobs are eluding us.
Secondly, we talk about the importation of refined petroleum products like the PMS, AGO, Kerosene amongst others, so you see Nigerian ship owners are supposed to have access to these cargors . For instance the petroleum that affects the life of every Nigeria, I followed one of Senate President; Dr. Bukola Saraki’s interview where he said that the NNPC are claiming that Nigerians consume 50million liters of fuel daily, that Nigerians don’t consume that quantity daily. Let’s assume we consume 30million liters daily, if that quantity is actually made an exclusive reserve of Nigerian ship owners to lift so that foreign operators will not come and compete with them, this will give jobs to our ships these are part of the things we have to consider. We supposed to have advanced to that stage of developing our waterways where these ferry services will be well-regulated, movement of people and goods is supposed to be so conversant with our system; now these are part of what will actually bring jobs for our ships.
What would you say is the cause of the factionalization in NISA?
You see, when you say facctionalization , there is no dynamic association that will not have internal disagreement, the fact that you have seen disagreements means that the people are dynamic. In every civilized nation, the people are usually governed by law and constitution. For instance the constitution of Nigeria, if you put 10 Nigerians together to read a section in the constitution, there is every possibility that you will have 10 different meanings to that particular section. That is what is actually bringing about all these the issue is, can we accommodate ourselves, why not and as time progresses we have actually discovered that fighting ourselves will not do us any good. So the fact that we disagreed on the application of our constitution does not mean we disagree totally as to how our shipping industry could be reformed. So when they say factionalization, it is no more a factionalization than the normal storm in a tea cup . We have other associations that are more factionalized but it doesn’t actually stop them. There was a time here that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) had more than one faction but at the end of the day they were able to come together. What we need as ship owners are – how we can articulate and harmonize our positions. For instance, the constitution allows freedom of association, so there is nothing stopping anybody from forming an association. For NISA we don’t have factions even right now we have gotten to the point where the tenure of our elected executive have expired. So, we are trying to come together to see how to create a new cause for the association. So factionalization or no factionalization to me is not really the issue because when you look at it, it doesn’t stop us from progressing, it does not also stop our authorities responsible from growing our local capacity and all that. Factionalization has always been what we hear people talk about. For instance what I am saying is let Cabotage law be implemented to the later, let there be full and effective enforcement of Cabotage law. It is not going to be only for vessels belonging to NISA members; it is also going to touch all ship owners. We are as well fighting for every ship owner; so we should down-play this factionalization and see how we can actually get to the business of scrutinizing the authorities that are responsible for developing our local shipping.
Since you said that the tenure of you current executive has expired, is NISA planning to conduct a fresh election soon?
Yes there are plans, we are working towards that, we are trying to talk to ourselves, I am aware that we are not too disposed to fighting ourselves, we have to come together, get all members on board and conduct a transparent, free and fair election such that the leader that will emerge will be someone who is selfless. I will let you know the date as event unfolds.
What is the latest of the MoU between NISA and some Greek ship owners?
That is just to make sure that we provide ships for our members because each time we complain about our inability to access cargo, what the authorities say is that our vessels are not sea-worthy and all that. So we looked at it, most of the foreign companies coming to our waters are mostly Greek ship owners, what we have to do is to collaborate with them, instead of them coming to take our jobs, we can as well take up their ships on a long time charter arrangement. We will be the ones getting the jobs and we will be paying them with the option of buying the vessel off at an agreed period of time; that was the agreement that we signed. But unfortunately, you know if you have a million ships without cargoes it is useless. The arrangement then was we had a MoU, get it across to nominated banks that will actually manage the transaction, but of course the issue of cargo comes in. You cannot get vessel when you don’t have access to cargo, now we get to NIMASA to see how we can take charge of cargoes that come in. Talking about the wet cargo; we were actually looking at petrol that we consume daily. We even drafted a marine notice that will criminalize STS Lome to Nigeria because Lome don’t have refinery . So a foreign ship is not supposed to terminate his voyage at Lome off shore and you now made it a requirement for a Nigerian ship to go to Lome to pick cargoes and you now raised a bill of lading, it is never done. So we are engaging the authorities to see how we can actually have access to cargo so that we can consummate the transaction. But unfortunately it is not forthcoming, that is why it is still hanging, but the MoU is still subsisting.
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