Stimulators acquired by the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron in Akwa Ibom State have been trapped in Indian about one year after they were acquired, but authorities at the academy said the delay was occasioned by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Speaking on the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the institution, the Rector of MAN Oron, Commodore Duja Efedua (rtd), in a statement made available to our correspondent explained that the academy is hoping that there will be a window for the stimulators to be shipped into the country as soon as possible.
Efedua also urged the government to come with plans to restart the economy and help shipping companies in the country to get back on their feet.
According to him “remember that over 70% of the world is water and almost 80% of international trade is by sea because of the heavy duty cargo, so, COVID-19 pandemic has impacted adversely on the maritime industry because with about 80% of trade has been put hold, and has affected everybody”.
On the simulators, he explained that: “An example is the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, the simulators, recently acquired by the Academy are all stranded in India, due to stoppages occasioned by the pandemic. We however hope there will be a window for them to be shipped into Nigeria as soon as possible”.
“The truth is that if care is not taken, most of the economies of the world will go into depression. There would be loss of Jobs. Some companies may collapse. The government has to come with plans to restart the economy and help shipping companies to get back on their feet with some support”
“There would be a redundancy period, which will be quite expensive and filled with uncertainties. It will take a while for jobs to be regained. That maybe about two or three years later, so the question is, will they still be fit to continue with their jobs at that time? That is one of the adverse effects of COVID”
“If the ports are not fully operational, countries that depend on imports will soon start having shortages. There may be a good side to the Pandemic saga. People will start looking inwards and begin to produce things they were not making locally before”.
“For example, last year, who would have told Nigerians to produce sanitisers, ventilators or face masks? Who would have told us to start equipping our hospitals? Now, we do so because the Pandemic has challenged us. Things we thought we could never survive without; we have lived without them in the past three months. This means that when things return to normal, we may never return to them. The world has changed; the way we do business has changed too. This has affected the maritime sector. The Post COVID-19 era will be different from the world we were used to”, he said.
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