Mr. Kingsley Anaroke (Maritime journalist)
Talking about celebrations, I think we can celebrate the fact that we are a maritime nation; a giant without any form of strength because going by all indices by which maritime nations are measured, I don’t see any area that Nigeria is very strong in, we don’t have tonnage, in terms of keeping the water channels healthy we are still behind, in the areas of human capacity building, we are not performing – so what are we celebrating? But, in this country, we are very good in spending money on issues that are not too important and people that are not ordinarily supposed to have anything to do with the event will pack themselves together there.
I understand that N35 million was approved for the celebration of the world maritime day in Nigeria, if we invest that kind of money in capacity building, I believe we will achieve something, but instead we believe in organizing seminars upon seminars which at the end of the day the recommendations and outcome will not see the light of day.
Mazi Joseph Anabaraonye (Registrar, FFAN)
I will say that the two days that Nigeria set aside for this event should be a day for sober reflections; to look back and ask ourselves what we are really doing, is this the way maritime is being run all over the world? And why are we backward? Considering the fact that we have a large coastal water, we have the opportunity to tap from our maritime potentials, but we are not really doing that, this is so because we do not have our own vessels and even national carrier.
Currently we can not boast of development in any area, be it seafarers training or financial capacity in terms of funding the maritime sector, there are lots of areas that nothing is being done. Also if you look at the port and what we call port concessioning, we are still scrambling over the small area that was developed over 20 to 30 years ago, while there is a large space of land that can still be developed as sea ports. All these multinationals that believe that they have the money to turn Apapa port around or want to acquire Tin Can port, why can’t they invest and develop these other areas where there are opportunities so that the nation will continue to grow, let them leave NPA to be battling with the existing once. I believe that Nigeria should have nothing to complain about port congestion because we have a very large area to develop our sea port.
So, if we say we want to celebrate, it should be a time for sober reflections and a period to ask ourselves these questions, look at the people we are appointing as our heads in the maritime sector, they are not professionals and are only there on political partonage and when this is the case they will only come to satisfy the wish of their political godfathers; these are problems.
Mr. Tope Wan (Freight Forwarder)
I think (to an extent) the world maritime day is worth celebrating in Nigeria considering the way things are going currently in the maritime industry. If we can use this as a medium to consolidate on the new innovations going on in the maritime industry, then it will be better, if on a yearly basis we can use this as a reminder and a way of moving forward in the right direction, then it is worth celebrating. But if on the other hand we are just doing it just to fulfil all righteousness as it’s done in other countries without any cogent things to be discussed on how to move the industry and Nigeria’s economy forward, then it is of no use celebrating because the maritime industry is the gateway to every nation’s economy.
Mr. Owolabi Omotayo (Water transporter)
I don’t believe Nigeria has anything to celebrate concerning the world maritime day because so far, there is still a lot of a disparity in the system. We have not been able to exploit maximally all the potentials and opportunities that are in our maritime sector.
First of all, our shipping activities have collapsed and taken over by foreigners because the Cabotage law is not working and also we have failed to create a well managed fleet and a national shipping line, there is no encouragement for indigenous ship owners; especially, ISAN and other indigenous operators so that they can also contribute their quota and compete with the multinationals. At the moment, if there is a contract to hire vessels, they still prefer to go abroad t hire a ship, this is not supposed to be so, the government should try and encourage both wet and dry cargo shippping activities and I believe all this will further go a long way in helping our young seafarers.
It’s not the time for us to celebrate yet; rather we should go back, have a sober reflection and try to improve on our activities.
Cadet Anthony Onyemelukwe (Student)
It’s worth celebrating the world maritime day but the Nigerian maritime industry is not encouraging us, and we are not benefiting from it, we are not enlightened, we need encouragement from shipping agencies, NIMASA and NPA. They should not relent.
John Egesi (Former DG, NMA)
The question is; what should be done to resurrect Nigerian National Shipping Line, so that the tremendous training NIMASA has been giving will not come to nothing. The shipping community should talk to the government to resurrect or form a new body to carry out the functions of NNSL.
NIMASA will be frustrated if there are no vessels, where will MAN, Oron be relevant? People are trained to be frustrated because there are no jobs.
We have the cargo, this is a trading country, and the private sector can’t do these things. We must make government realize that what we want is not just vessels but vessels that can accommodate what we can do.
Kunle Folarin (Vice Chairman, PCC)
It is important for us to stop dreaming and live a real world by developing and working on capacity building like in the Philippines.
Our voice in ship ownership is very low; we need to develop Nigerian maritime administration as well. If we build seafarers we need to build maritime practitioners and this should be supported because 85 per cent of Nigeria’s trade is through the seaport. Without maritime sector, we cannot survive as a nation, even with the crude oil. We should develop all the capacity we have as a maritime nation.
Discussion about this post