The Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) has said that it is ready to embark on inter – association dialogue by extending the olive branch and collaborate with other shipowners associations in the country.
Newly-elected president of SOAN, Dr. Mcgeorge Onyung stated this in Lagos last week during the election process which eventually brought him into office.
Onyung harped on the need for all Nigerian shipowners in the sector to speak with one voice in order to attract government attention and achieve more.
He however stated clearly that speaking with one voice does not mean all the associations must come under one body.
The group has also warned its members to be wary of employing seafarers and crew that are 'not nice'
While unveiling his manifesto, the medical doctor- turned-shipowner assured that "Another thing we are going to do is that, we are going to extend the olive branch, because the industry that we operate in, thinks we should be one body, no, there are so many professional bodies that are not one body"
"In this case, we have other associations, what we are going to do is to extend that olive branch to them and have an intra – association dialogue, what we need is one voice and all these comes from tenets of leadership which is understanding, knowledge, vision, reinventing and creating"
"By relating with them, we would create the one voice, as a matter of fact, we would corporate with them to achieve what we need to achieve", he said.
Onyung assured that his leadership would be an all-inclusive, consultative and team work.
He blamed shipowners for the atrocities committed by their crew onboard, saying that there is no need for a shipowner to harbor or employ a bad seafarer.
Addressing his colleagues, he said "My principle is to treat the seafarers and crew as members of our families.
The irresponsibility of hiring a wrong crew is our fault, because if you cannot take a crew member to dinner in your house, if your crew member is not nice, you cannot teach him to be nice, if you find somebody who is not nice, don't hire him"
Speaking on how to secure contracts for his members, he said : "We are going to create an innovative way of getting ships, we have been told that there is a $3.5 billion contract waiting for us courtesy of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, so we have to position ourselves, get back to the drawing board, create teams that are going to work together and make our business work"
Also speaking with journalists at the venue of the election, founding president of SOAN, Engr Greg Ogbeifun noted that gone were the days when shipowners are seen as benegerent and being antagonistic of the federal government.
According to Ogbeifun, SOAN had suffered a big blow and a decline in membership during the global drop in crude oil price. According to him, a lot of shipowners are no longer having ships and this has affected membership of the association.
He said "at a time when there was turbulence in the industry by reason of other bodies that were in existence, we ran into difficulty because the perception of the government and the industry of the associations that existed then was very contrary"
"They were seen as being benegerent, confrontational, fighting the system and fighting the government, this didn't help the course of the shipowners"
"Eventually, when a few of us realised that unless we change the tide, the whole shipowners irrespective of where you belong, we are going to be grouped as benegerent, fighting government, so we took a different turn. It took a while for industry to start listening to us"
"It was during these four years that the oil and gas industry witnessed a dramatic fall in oil price, the population of our membership dropped drastically because when the fuel price dropped, it affected everybody"
He said that some of the members who lost their ships and businesses are now beginning to come back into business.
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