Why is 2010 the year to begin implementation of Government Maritime Policies?
a. We have enough of Maritime Policies to put this nation in the top flight of Global Maritime players.
b. We have in the past two years organized more than 50 workshops, seminars, conferences, sensitization programmes organized by government maritime agencies, professional bodies like Nigerian Master Mariners Association, Nigerian Institute of Shipping, Chamber of shipping, etc. From all the above, more than 50 communiqués have been issued.
c. The rate at which we establish committees, task forces, and experts’ forum to deal with maritime issues can only be compared to the rate at which United Nations set up Peace Corps around trouble areas of the world.
d. We have travelled so much around the world to attend maritime conferences that the outcome of recommendations from them if implemented should have enhanced our maritime development.
One of the major obstacles to implementation of policies is the fact that because of various directives from the supervisory ministry in Abuja, many chief executives of Maritime Agencies are not even allowed to stay in office sufficiently enough to monitor or ensure enforcement of policies or meet maritime interest group to interact with them.
Recommended focus for year 2010 -2011
By the year 2011, Nigeria would have spent about six years in Category C membership of International Maritime Organization (IMO). Category C can be said to be a ‘political nomination’. You have to campaign around the continents of the world from Iceland to South Pole. You have to; within the countries of your region settle issues before nomination. You have to be seen as the “God father”; in control of all Maritime Organizations and on top of all maritime activities in the region through Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for implementation of maritime safety and security. You must directly or indirectly fund regional maritime organizations and create enabling marine environment for their successful implementation.
We should be recognized as a maritime nation by moving from “Political” Category ‘C’ to Category B membership of IMO whose nations control the biggest deadweight tonnage of the world fleet, thereby contributing immensely towards the implementation of IMO and, International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions and also establishing a sound implementation of International Transport Workers Federation’s guidelines for seafarers.
The IMO had already declared the year 2010 in its Xmas and New Year message as the year for seafarers.
This is the first time in the past one decade that IMO is focusing on seafarers, which are fast becoming endangered specie”. Celebrating the IMO Day in September is not what is important, but commencing implementation of already ratified conventions and policies that will bring back the glorious days of the sixties (60’s) through early eighties (80’s) when Nigerian seafarers’ contribution to nation’s economy was well recognized by the Government and job creation for Nigerian seafarers extended from Nigerian shores to deep sea. Those were the years Government Maritime Policies were last implemented to the word.
As a keen observer in the global maritime industry, I want to see the gradual positive shift of Government’s policy implementation machineries through a key maritime agency that may prepare and position us into Category ‘B’.
Come the year 2011; after the IMO general assembly elections, we still find our self in IMO Category ‘C’ instead of ‘B’, it all means that our implementation of maritime policies have failed the nation.
Observation
It should be noted that the proactiveness of the National Assembly in getting the right policies into law in the past few years must be well acknowledged. For the first time, special sessions for professionals and experts were organized before final drafts of Maritime Bills are tabled. This is a change from when a Consultant is made to draft a Bill and all content adopted during a Public Hearing.
Conclusion:
Performance Monitor Scale must be established for maritime agencies through the Federal Ministry of Transport to ensure continuous implementation of policies.
This year, we should stop speaking too much of “Maritime English” around the Globe and work towards effective implementation of policies.
We must improve our programme on the development of Nigerians as credible seafarers with the potential of gaining employment in Nigeria coastal waters and on international deep sea trade
Lastly, maritime reporters are the best source of marking the nation to know about our maritime achievements. Publishing articles on new ships design, repairs yards, construction of dry dock around the world when Lagos port which is the biggest port in West Africa sub Region cannot boast of a dry dock that can take a 20,000 dead weight vessel is uncalled for.
You are the best source of information in implementation of Maritime Policies. Some of you have been on this beat long enough to qualify as “Able Seamen”. The only snag is that you don’t have the mandatory seatime. But I know you sail (write) well on ink and paper!
This year we shall take our usual seat on the side line and watch how the water side game is being played.
Catalogue of Pirate Attacks in The Gulf Of Guinea In 2009
• On January 4, gunmen in speedboats seized control of the French-owned fast supply intervention vessel MV Bourbon Leda as it sailed past Nigeria’s Bonny Island crude export terminal en route to Royal Dutch Shell’s Bonga offshore field. The crew of five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one Cameroonian, and one Indonesian was held hostage for several days before being released in exchange for the payment of an undisclosed sum.
• After dusk by ten armed men while at anchor off Lagos. The captain was attacked before the assailants made off with cash and other valuables.
• January 17, the Bahamas-registered crude oil tanker MT Front Chief was attacked by marauders in speed boats, armed with automatic weapons and explosives, while the vessel was berthed at the Bonny Island terminal, where it was taking on a load. Fortunately, the grenades thrown by the attackers missed; unfortunately, the captain of the line tug used by the tanker was killed.
• January 19, the German cargo ship MV MOL Splendor, was boarded while anchored at Tema, Ghana. The robbers broke into a container and made off with the contents.
• On February 14, the Romanian-owned, Liberian-flagged floating storage and offloading unit (FPSO) Histria Tiger was boarded by more than a dozen masked pirates armed with automatic weapons as it lay anchored off Lagos. They took the boatswain hostage and forced him to lead them to the bridge where they opened fire, destroying the ship’s communication system. They then proceeded to rob the vessel and its crew.
• February 17, seaborne gunmen attacked Equatorial Guinea’s capital of Malabo, shooting their way as far as the presidential palace, before they were repelled by security forces.
• March 11, in the same port, another heavily armed gang boarded the Singapore-flagged chemical tanker MT Emirates Swan. The captain and a seaman were serious injured in the assault.
• April 19, while berthed in Lagos, the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier MV Aristeas P was boarded by armed men from two speed boats, who ransacked the ship’s stores.
• April 20, the Turkish-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged chemical tanker MT Aleyna Mercan was attacked by armed pirates some 50 nautical miles off the Nigerian coast where the boat was making a delivery to the French oil company Total. After robbing the vessel and its crew, the attackers took the captain and an engineer hostage as they escaped; the two were later released.
• May 21, the German-owned, St. Vincent and Grenadines-registered cargo ship MV Reval was boarded as it was sailing off the Nigerian coast. The armed attackers broke down the cabin doors of officers and crew, robbing them as well as the ship’s safe, before making their escape.
• June 6, crew of the Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier MV Nord Express drove off a group of armed robbers who were in the process of looting the ship’s stores while it lay at anchor off the port of Takoradi, Ghana.
• June 9, the British tanker MV Anuket Ivory was boarded in the early morning hours as it rode at anchor off Douala, Cameroon. The armed attackers disabled the communications equipment and robbed the vessel before escaping.
• The same day, sixteen armed men boarded and robbed the Ukrainian-owned, Panamanian-flagged cargo ship MV Sevastopolskaya Bukhta as it was likewise at anchor off Douala.
• June 10, the brand-new Panamanian-registered bulk carrier MV Tennei Maru was boarded and robbed by heavily armed robbers as it was anchored off the Nigerian coast.
• June 27, the Turkish-flagged bulk carrier MV Duden was attacked by pirates off Lagos. Three crew members were wounded by fire from the marauders.
• June 29, the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier MV Pearl River was robbed by armed men while anchored off Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
• July 12, likewise off Abidjan, the German-owned, Liberian-flagged tanker MT Abram Schulte was robbed by armed men.
• August 3, five crew members were kidnapped from the Lithuanian refrigerated cargo ship MV Saturnas as it was anchored off Nigeria.
• August 27, robbers boarded the Dutch chemical tanker MT Venezia D as it was berthed in Lagos and, threatening the duty watchman with a gun, managed to escape with part of the cargo.
• September 6, in Koki, Nigeria, more than fifty armed assailants stormed the Turkish-owned, Maltese-flagged tanker MT Erria Anne. As the crew took shelter, the robbers made off with the ship’s stores.
• September 7, nine heavily-armed pirates in a speed boat boarded and hijacked the St. Vincent and Grenadines-registered tug boat Jascon 40 sailing near Nigeria’s Bonny River.
• September 20, half a dozen armed pirates boarded the Antigua and Barbuda-registered refrigerated cargo ship MV Nova Galicia as it was steaming off the Bonny River.
• On October 10, Cameroonian military forces repelled an attack on the FV Rose Three, owned by Atlantic Shrimper Limited, Nigeria’s largest fisheries company, as the boat was anchored off the Bakassi Peninsula, which Nigeria recently yielded to its neighbour. Four attackers were killed, while three others were injured.
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