The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has received the final report of the Interim Management Committee on Maritime Academy of Nigeria, (MAN) Oron, Akwa Ibom State.
Receiving the report on behalf of the minister, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Sabiu Zakari expressed profound gratitude for the good work done by the Interim Management Committee members and for coming up with a road map for the revitalization of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron. Amaechi noted that the Interim Management Committee came to being through a fact finding mission to ascertain the veracity of a story going round at the time that MAN, Oron Academic Standard was nose-diving and needed to be rescued without delay.
The Minister however, promised to send the Report to the Board of Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, saying that the Ministry will ensure its recommendations are fully implemented.
“You have performed this job at little or no cost and we thank you for a job well done”. We accept it and will do all you have recommended”, he enthused.
Submitting the Report to the minister, the chairman of the Interim Committee, Chief Adebayo Sarumi thanked him for giving them the opportunity to serve in this capacity. He added that during the course of their assignment, they were able to critically look into the books of the Academy and some areas of academic deficiency were detected.
Sarumi noted that the academic standard of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron was below standard and there was need to properly train qualify seafarers in line with world standard. He emphasized that the Report if carefully implemented by Government, will serve as a road map for standard academic development of MAN, Oron that will meet the need of students and in turn boost the morale of staff for effective and efficient job performance.
Recall that the Minister inaugurated the Interim Management Committee on September 7, 2017 to run the affairs of the Academy for Six months and ensure that it is properly restructured and repositioned for academic excellence in line with other Maritime Academy World over.
According to Sarumi, MAN Oron has been neglected for too long, he expressed displeasure that a Federal Government establishment could be reduced to a local government primary school.
He said there was the need to balance the poor staffing in the school, adding that the proportion of non-academic staff is 80 per cent to 20 per cent of academic staff.
He said the situation is unacceptable, as it is not the best for the school.
“If the authorities want to assist a local community there is other ways it could be done, instead of turning a federal establishment into a local government primary school.”
He said the way the stakeholders are presently running the school was nothing short of a local government affair.
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