A merchant Navy officer; Capt Alfred Oniye has raised an alarm that about five sets of cadets who graduated from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) in Oron, Akwa Ibom State between 2000 to 2005 are yet to secure jobs. He said that about 80 percent of the cadets are still roaming the streets.
Capt Oniye who is with the Directorate of Merchant Navy in Nigeria told Shipping Position Daily last week that training cadets without either seatime or permanent jobs is akin to training militants.
The mariner told our correspondent that he had to employ one of the jobless cadets as his driver, even as he raised an alarm that if the trend should continue, there would be an increase in the level of insecurity and restiveness on Nigerian waters.
He berated the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) for not doing enough to rescue the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron from deterioration. According to him, the funds expended on seafarers training abroad under its National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) could have been channeled towards development of MAN Oron.
Speaking further, he said, “we still have 2000, 2001, 2002 up-to 2005 set, 80 percent of them produced by the Nigerian Maritime Academy are still jobless. My driver finished 2008 from Oceanography”
“I am afraid because NIMASA has equally trained up to 2,500 seafarers abroad, but where is the job? And they are all professionals, so expect militancy to increase, indirectly; I would say that NIMASA is training militants, because you are training people you cannot give jobs to. Training seafarers abroad when those here have not got jobs is like increasing maritime insecurity, he alerted.
Capt Oniye lamented that various maritime academies, both public and private were producing seafarers every year, but that there are no jobs for them to do. According to him, many of the seafarers were not also having jobs because they are half-baked and unemployable.
“The lecturers are inexperienced and this is why they are producing half-baked seafarers, most of them do not actually possess practical experience for the job”, he alleged.
The money being wasted by NIMASA to train seafarers abroad would have put MAN Oron in a better position. Oron can do what they are seeking outside the country, but NIMASA does not want Oron to grow”
“There is no training vessel and this job (seafaring) is practical, NIMASA is the one encouraging half-baked seafarers in Oron, because Oron is under NIMASA”, he said.
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