The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) says it will collaborate with relevant security agencies to stamp out piracy in the country’s territorial waters.
Director-General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside also said the Agency is set to review its maritime security strategy to enhance its capacity to combat piracy and illegal activities on Nigerian waters.
Dr. Peterside said this during the defense of the Agency’s 2016 budget before the Senate Committee on Marine Transport on Wednesday. He explained that the strategy will be built on three core pillars of achieving safety of lives at sea, protection of goods/products in voyage and securing maritime assets in Nigerian territory.
In achieving this, the DG said that a multifaceted approach including cooperation and coordination among security forces of all the countries in the Gulf of Guinea is being coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser with NIMASA playing a key role.
Other areas include a Nigerian military led patrol of the country’s territorial waters with NIMASA providing technical support , effective use of the Agency’s satellite surveillance facility to detect illegalities in real time and the development and passage of an anti piracy law that will strengthen the legal framework for prosecution of piracy related offences.
Dr. Peterside who solicited the cooperation of the Senate Committee for the actualisation of the Agency’s mandate in sustaining safety and security in the maritime domain also assured stakeholders that with a combination of these strategies, maritime crimes in Nigerian waters would be reduced to the barest minimum in the coming year.
While stressing the commitment of the Agency to fully automate its processes under the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), the DG expressed his desire to integrate this platform with the systems already developed by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for greater efficiency and productivity.
He assured the Distinguished Senators of the management’s commitment to ensure transparency, accountability and probity in the discharge of its mandate warning that there would be zero tolerance for corruption.
Speaking with journalists on the sideline of a maritime conference in Lagos on Monday, Dr Dakuku Peterside, had also said that piracy had been a major challenge in maritime operations, adding, however, that there had been positive changes in the industry, especially in NIMASA
“We are partnering with security agencies, precisely Nigerian Air Force, Navy to patrol our waterways and enhance surveillance on our waterways.
“In addition we are promoting and sponsoring an anti piracy bill before the National Assembly, where we think we deal with the key issues prosecution and other things that we have noticed seems to be a gap in prosecuting pirates.
“We have deployed Central Surveillance System and we have synchronised our surveillance security patrol with that of the navy, the air force and other relevant agencies.
“Theses are some of the things we are doing; we have increased our domain awareness all to put an eye on what is going on the ocean and the sea.
“I believe that piracy will soon be history.’’
In his remarks, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport, Senator Ahmad Rufai Sani assured the Management of the Agency of the cooperation of the Committee in order to deliver on the lofty programmes of NIMASA in 2016.
He commended the DG for his commitment to reposition the Agency towards the attainment of its core mandate saying that the Committee will exercise effective oversight on the Agency to make sure that the budgetary provisions are strictly followed.
Senators Clifford Ordia, Ovie Omo Agege , Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, Abdul Abubakar Gumel and George Akume all praised the DG for taking concrete steps to reposition the Agency and pledged the support of Senate.
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