“MAN ORON WILL SOON HAVE A BOAT BUILDING YARD”
For Mr Nseyen Ebong, the Rector, Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron Akwa Ibom state, the story of the once cash-strapped institution has changed, so much so that the nation’s only government- owned maritime training institution is now a huge site of on-going projects. I t was an elated Ebong who invited a select team of media men to witness the recent commissioning of multimillion Naira set of facilities that was donated to the academy by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited(NLNG). He seized the opportunity of the presence of the media men to bare his mind on some issues. Prior to this, I have had a one-on-one with him a couple of weeks back. We present the two encounters.
Is there any of this kind of water bus already in existence here?
There is nothing like that right now; people will prefer to spend 25 minutes from Oron to Calabar than to do four hours on the road when you have a decent vessel doing that, but there is no body doing that right now, for the past years; what they are using are these speed boats with all the risks involved, but once we put that water bus, it will be very comfortable with life jacket and so on.
How much did it cost to build this jetty?
This jetty was built for about N200million some years back, but if you want to build another jetty now, we’ll be looking at about N400million.If the National Assembly approves the money, then we will build another jetty. By the way, in this year, we are going on a comprehensive development of this jetty, there is going to be a boat building and maintenance yard. We are looking at it that by the end of this year, we should start building boats in this place, so there is a boat building yard, there is a slipway, there is a gantry to be installed, so these are the things, maybe by the time you come here again, this place would have turned into something else, it is going to be turned into a comprehensive boat building facility, of course you know that one of the main pillars of Cabotage is that the vessels operating in the Cabotage environment should be built in Nigeria, manned by Nigerians and maintained in Nigeria, we would have thought that after the enactment of that law and its coming into force, there would have been a dedicated and serious effort to establish or encourage proficiency in boat building, in the whole country; now we are the only school offering ship building technology as a course. The government should have come in very powerfully to support us, knowing that it will support one leg of the Cabotage law to stand firm. So once we build the boat yard, I think we will be on the way to assisting the Cabotage law.
What is the security situation here and what guarantees do you give for the safety for these facilities?
That’s a nightmare because we have been attacked three times by militants before the amnesty, so we are doing all that we can to ensure that this place is protected. We are liaising with the Akwa Ibom State joint task force to patrol this place night and day, we have our own outfit though it was not fashioned to be a security outfit, but we have now turned it to that, in order to protect these facilities, other things we are doing is talking with the Navy, we are thinking that because of the number of things developing along this waterfront, there are so many things happening: the oil companies are beginning to come in here so there should be a Naval base here, we are thinking that Ibaka is too far away, though its just about 15 nautical miles from here, there should be one in Oron because of the things that are happening.
What is the cost of these facilities?
We went on the internet because we did not ask them, and somebody was putting it (the equipment) conservatively at about US$850,000, so if you consider that this thing was shipped in from outside and brought to Oron from Lagos and Port Harcourt, the installation and the rest you will be looking at maybe US$1million or about N150million and that is just one part of the support that we are getting from the Nigerian LNG. Of course, I know that you are aware that the Nigerian LNG has been assisting the academy from time to time, in the past they have given us equipment worth more than N80million, they come and pick our staff to go on train- -the- trainer course outside the country and they foot the entire bill, these are some of the things that they are doing, and of course you are also aware that they come in here every year and recruit 25 of our cadets into their employment, for the number of years that I have been here there is no year that they have not come, and as I am speaking to you, we have nothing less that 117 ex-cadets of the academy in the employment of the Nigerian LNG, this year they came and took about 25 and that is how they do every year. This is their recruitment base and it’s a very rigorous process that they put the cadets through, from aptitude test, medical and so on. I just want to put it on record that if we have other corporate organizations in the private sector doing what NLNG is doing, the federal government vision of 20-20-20 will be easy play. Don’t forget that this is the same NLNG that annually award this literary prices, it is the same that awards the Nigerian price for science, support of MAN Oron, recruitment, so I don’t know what a corporate citizen can do better that what they have done, if we have others doing the same thing, this place would have been something else by now, this is just one thing done by one organization, so if you look at the multiplicity of them littered all over the country including multinationals, what would we be talking about.
What do you think could be holding other private sector players from giving you support and has the NNPC in particular done anything?
I have never had NNPC call this Academy for anything, we have written on our own and we have stopped writing because I can’t spend all my time writing to an organization that does not respond, so NNPC has not done anything to assist, and when you look at the symbiotic relationship between oil and gas and the maritime sector, you will believe that this Academy should be NNPC’s baby, other people are lifting our crude oil and we are loosing billions of dollars every year because it’s not our people and our vessel doing it. When we took 25 cadets to Malaysia people were writing in papers that why is Ebong and Ferdinand Agu with Sekibo taking Nigerian cadets to Malaysia? My only answer to that was what is your own solution? When I joined the Academy in 1985, the NNSL was in existence with about 20 big ships in its fleets. At that time the subsequent phases of the training of our cadets was not much of a problem because our cadets could simply go from the Academy unto national vessels and indeed two of these vessels in the NNSL fleet were dedicated training vessels: River Andoni and River Mada, were core training vessels dedicated for training, if you go board there was enough accommodation for cadets and classrooms aboard the ship, so at that time the subsequent phases of the training of our cadets was not a problem. Of course, you know by international law and STCW to which Nigeria is a signatory, once the cadet finishes at the Academy and has passed to go to sea, we must by necessity serve- out the STCW- prescribed one year free training on a vessel that is engaged in normal commercial and trading activities all over the world, that is what the law says, and when the NNSL was in existence with 20 ships in its fleet, that phase of the training of our cadets was not a problem. But with the liquidation of the NNSL in 1995, we have zero ships in the national fleet so what do we do? We had to take the cadets to Malaysia who opened the windows of opportunity for us and our cadets went there. I don’t know whether you have seen the reports, but they performed magnificently with all their inadequacies and there is no where that we go and cadets in this academy even with all the shot comings don’t perform magnificently. Last year; in June we were in Southampton maritime university and the vice chancellor took us round, when we went to the marine engineering workshop they have a glass showcase where the best work performed by the student is displayed, when I saw the name Orji, I was excited that this must be a Nigerian and they said yes that this is the best work performed by any student of the university, and I want to tell you that this man was an ex-cadet of the Maritime Academy, Oron, I thought that was the end but the VC still said that, that was in 2009. He said in 2008, the best student in marine engineering was a girl and an ex-cadet of MAN Oron. In 1990 when I visited the same school as a student from the World Maritime University, it was the same thing, the rector at that time invited me and said “are you from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria”, I said yes sir, but right now, I am a student in WMU, he said he wanted to show me something, so I followed him, he said “the best student in this school I am told came from your school and that his name is Kenneth Ala”; I said yes I know because I taught him and that last year, he graduated as the best graduating student of MAN, Oron, so I am not surprised. So all time I have been to Southampton maritime university the best student is an ex-cadet of this institution so what are we talking about? When we went to Malaysia we saw a structure and at the top of the structure they wrote ‘Petronance’ which is an equivalent of NNPC, under Petronance we have MISC (the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation) as its subsidiary, now the equivalent of MISC in Nigeria should be NNSL which has died, under MISC is ALAM which is the Malaysian Maritime Academy close to Milaca and shortened ALAM, in Nigeria the equivalent of ALAM is MAN Oron, so in Malaysia you have the structure Petronance, MISC and ALAM, in Nigeria it should be NNPC, NNSL and MAN Oron. MISC owns ALAM and in 1985 when the NNSL was in existence with more than 20 ships in its fleet, the Malaysia International Shipping Corporation (MISC) was just coming up with only seven ships in its fleet, twenty years later in 2005 when we took 25 cadets from Nigeria to Malaysia, the MISC fleet had risen from seven to 151 ships, on the contrary in the Nigerian situation we had gone from 20 ships to zero.
There are so many projects coming up at the academy, we didn’t see things like this some three, four years ago, why at this time?
Consistency. The bible says that to them that believe, they shall be a performer, that means if you have faith and you believe, there will be a manifestation. I believe that this country is great, it can be greater, that this academy is great in a great country and it can be greater; that revolves into the physical manifestations that you are seeing. If we believe and we have faith in ourselves, there will be a manifestation and performance.
Nigerians have been travelling to Ghana for training programmes, aren’t you worried?
When they talk of people going here and going there, I don’t have head ache and I don’t lose sleep over it, because I know what we are doing over here and I know the standards and foundations that we are laying down here and I am also conscious of the fact that if you take a Nigerian working in Lagos and you say that there is a special training they are offering in MAN, Oron and that the standard of training offered in these courses is higher than that offered in Accra Ghana, so go there for one week, that Nigerian will prefer to go to Accra because of the estacode. I have seen these things before, unless the federal government comes out and begins to put its foot down and says that any training that can be offered in MAN, Oron, you can’t go to Ghana, Hamburg, or Southampton or South Africa, we will continue to belittle ourselves and make ourselves a laughing stock in the community of nations. What is Ghana offering in respect of basic safety courses prescribed by STCW that any Nigerian should leave shores of the country for Ghana? You have been to the Regional Maritime Academy in Ghana, is their basic safety courses center better than what we are seeing here? We have just had delivered to us four brand new life wraps, an expatriate came here two weeks ago and we took him round to see this and he said you have all this? He saw four brand new life rafts when in some maritime training institutions, they have only one that they continue to patch, MAN, Oron has four brand new, you saw the level of the delivery of the instruction in that basic safety course center a short while ago, where can you say that the standards can be higher, but you find somebody sitting down and saying when I go to Ghana, they will give me $305 a day for five days, he will begin to work out what he will collect, that is why they are going there. It is not because of standards. The Maritime and Coast Guard Agency of United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland (that is the equivalence of our own NIMASA) has delegated the responsibility to MAN, Oron to train in respect of the four basic safety courses, coming all the way from United Kingdom to see that MAN, Oron is a star and our own people don’t recognize us, that is why when I see some of the nonsense written in the papers. I don’t respond. Somebody is sitting down somewhere and running this place down.
How come you didn’t go to town about the Maritime Coast Guard recognition?
Don’t they know? They know, is this the first time I am saying this to them.
But Nigerians don’t seem to acknowledge this
For the British government to have come to Oron to say what you are doing meets our standard. The certificate that we are issuing here, the British government says they endorse it. The Regional Maritime Academy in Ghana can not issue this certificate, it doesn’t have the accreditation. People are going to Ghana because they don’t have shame.
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