“Nigerian Merchant Navy And Water Transport Senior Staff Association Is It, Others Are Illegal” ..Capt Thomas Kemewerigha
Having kept quiet for too long on the emergence of illegal merchant navy bodies, last week, Captain Thomas Kemewerigha, President, Nigerian Merchant Navy And Water Transport Senior Staff Association opened up in chat with the media in a no-holds-barred. Dapo Olawuni was there and we bring you excerpts from the media parley.
On unrests and insecurity
You and I know that in this country, when issues of election come up a lot of things follow; security wise. In the past, we have witnessed exchange of arms, thugery restive activities among the youths, we are also aware of the militant activities that have been going on, it is true that government has come out openly to say they want to address it and we know how far they have gone, we are also aware of the pirates activities at sea where everyday sailors are attacked and goods are stolen, all these activities are carried out by Nigerian youths, they are from the Niger Delta region, but thank God today it is getting to other areas and it’s now a national issue. The body that I am heading; the Nigerian Merchant Navy Officers and Water Transport Senior Staff Association is a trade union outfit and it is the body that is empowered to handle the welfare of seafarers and officers, this body is registered as a trade union and is affiliated to Trade Union Congress and it is also affiliated to International Transport Workers Federation in London, we are also in the board of the Seafarers Welfare Board which is also an affiliate of ITF in London.
Emergence of unregistered bodies
What borders us most today is that unregistered bodies, unregistered in the sense that it is not possible for a gazetted body to be gazette twice, it is also not possible for the Corporate Affairs Commission to register a particular name twice; because of conflict, but here we are today, every day you buy a newspaper, you read about merchant navy corps, merchant navy academy, director general of merchant navy and so on and this is causing a lot of problems, it has got to the point where the Nigerian Police went on air and said that the Merchant Navy is banned along with four other non-governmental organizations. This Merchant Navy is an international body, we have it in the UK, Australia, Philippines, India and so on and we do meet, just like we had the ITF congress in Mexico. It is something embarrassing for the ITF in London to discover that a body that is affiliated to them is banned. This has been the major problem of our association, but it does not end there, we take it as a very serious issue because a trained Merchant Navy personnel is either a certificated engineer, a radio officer, a navigator and so on, he is an officer onboard the vessel, their importance to the nation can not be over emphasized, when the civil war of this country came up, all the Merchant Navy personnel were drafted into the Navy to beef up its strength because the only difference between the Nigerian navy and the Merchant navy is just the carrying of arms, basically the seamanship aspect of it is the same, we are commercially inclined while they (Navy) are to defend the territorial waters of the country because of the arms they carry.
The implications
If this issue is not checked, it will get to stage where we will not be able to differentiate the sea pirates from the illegal Merchant Navy. Some groups have come out to say that they have more than 3,000 personnel, how do they manage to gather that number of youths to a body that is not registered and they have even come out to allege that the Nigerian Navy is incompetent and that government should allow to them to check piracy and pipeline vandalisation. Somebody comes out and tells you that he is from a merchant navy academy, yet government is keeping quiet. We are saying that we don’t know them and that, they are not affiliated to us, we are a registered body, we have our certificate of incorporation, and we have our gazette and every other thing is with us. If there is a genuine merchant navy that is registered and gazetted in this country and there is a fake merchant navy with an address of where they are, yet the security agencies don’t find it fit to go and ask questions on what they are up to and address the issues, instead they are busy harassing genuinely registered merchant navy personnel. We have decided to take on the issue because if we say we are genuine and the fake ones are parading themselves, it will not be difficult for the police to differentiate the two bodies. We have decided that we will change the Identity Cards that our members are using, we are giving them from now till December for to return all the I.D cards, and we are going to send the new specimen to all the security agencies so that from that point anybody that is caught after the expiration of the date that does not look like the new ones then that person is on his own. We are also doing this because we want all our genuine members to come back and re-register, we are also trying to create a website whereby if anybody is apprehended, you don’t need to call any of our state offices, all you need to do is log on to our website and check if that person’s name is there. We know today that when you go to Seme border, Idiroko and so on, fake merchant navy personnel, even the real ones, we also have military personnel, mobile police and even the army are all there doing one sort of business or the other; they escort goods, Tokunboh cars, frozen foods from border to township and even from Lagos to other parts of the states, so if today the police are saying that the merchant navy uniform does not give them the room to differentiate who is who, hen I don’t know. I think is even more pronounced in Lagos state, because once you put on any uniform and you enter a public transport you are called a staff and you don’t get to pay. No merchant navy officer should put on their uniform and enter a public vehicle, it is not allowed, you only see them wearing it onboard, of recent we have advised that all the merchant navy should desist from using the uniform and I am emphasizing it today that any genuine merchant navy personnel caught with their uniform is on his own, he should use that uniform on board the vessel where he works and when he is coming offshore, he should pull the uniform and wear his mufti because anywhere you are working to some extent you are given transport allowance, this is meant for you to transport yourself from your place of work to your house. We are not encouraging any merchant navy personnel to board any vehicle and claim ‘staff’.
Commodore Edema’s merchant navy
There was a period that this so called Commodore Edema- led merchant navy group had a confrontation with the LASTMA officials in Lagos where they destroyed the LASTMA office at Mile 2, they called some royal navy who apprehended them and they were taken to the naval base, we were invited to identify them and to ascertain if they are our members, Edema himself was called out and was asked if he knows me and he says yes, I am the president of the merchant navy senior staff association and he was asked where he belongs, when he told them that he is also heading the Nigerian merchant navy corps, he was asked top go back to his cell with his boys and at that point, I went back and gave the navy all the information required. Edema was a welder in the NNSL; when NIMASA was paying them off, I have a copy of the list where his name appeared to get his gratuity, so how could a welder of yesterday suddenly turn out to be a commodore heading a body that the government is looking at. Series of publications have gone out, but yet the situation remains the same, it will get to a stage that we will go to court and if the CAC says they are the one who registered them; then fine.
On unqualified seafarers who carry fake certificates
Most of you have reported that most of the Nigerian seafarers are not qualified and that that there is large scale fake certifications in Nigeria, but I tell you that to some extent that is not correct because we know that in any profession there is always the fake ones, there was a situation where an American Captain had a collision in Texas and on investigation, he was discovered to be fake, but they dealt with him, took his certificate and he went to prison. Talking about fake certification, if you want to go for any professional exam and you didn’t pass through the four walls of the school, you did not attend any programme; either part time or full time to equip yourself to face these examinations, you will never pass, and if you don’t pass and you see your colleagues ahead of you, and you still want to practice, then you find other means of getting the certificate in order to practice. We are saying that fake certification may be in circulation, but our officers are not half- baked, when you allow two bedroom nautical institutions to exist, we call them this because all they want is money, everybody wants certificate, so they sell forms and people go to buy, they attend lectures with half- baked lecturers and when they come out, the certificate is not recognized and they want to work, then, they go the other way to look for the fake certificates.
The NIMASA connection
We have identified this as the area that is giving room for fake certification in the maritime sector, if we cry out and NIMASA as custodians of maritime matters can not come out compile the list of accredited maritime institutions, some of these boys come out with testimonials and when they go to NIMASA they are not known, they allow these evil to continue at the expense of parents who believe that their children is going to school not knowing that they are wasting hard earned money. If Lagos state government (at a time) could call for the scrapping of substandard private schools, what stops the maritime sector regulator which is NIMASA to look into the state of maritime education and track these fake maritime institutions. We have MAN, Oron and School of Oceanography, but the graduates coming out of these institutions are now turning into ‘okada riders’ because they don’t get vessel to run their sea terms and start their professional exams. We have Nigerian seafarers all over the world; go to the UK even the ones who struggled to get their certificates and forced themselves to get there are coming back because of the global problem. They believe that if they get back home they will get a better job, but expatriates have taken their jobs
How to become a merchant navy personnel?
The merchant navy personnel on board a vessel either as an engineer in the engine room or as a deck officer that will rise from the cadet to be the captain must attend a maritime institution, we have the one at Oron and the Oceanography, when you attend these institutions for a two- year program which is for basic certificate or the ND as the case maybe, after this you go for your internship which means you are now going into the profession, because your diploma or ND does not qualify you for any position on board the vessel as an officer, not even as a rating. Today IMO and ILO have come out with safety measures in their mandatories, so when you go for your 18 months IT as an engineering cadet or as a deck cadet and before this you must have got your four basic mandatories, after this you now come back to NIMASA for your first exams which is OOW, NIMASA will never register you for that exam if you are not qualified and they are also the only qualified body in this country that has the right to conduct that exam, before they accept you, they make sure that you have the basic certificates after which you go for six weeks at Oron for a bridging course because the believe is that while you are doing your practical experience you might have forgotten few things, this is the first professional exam you have to undergo, when you get this you are now to be studying your masters and not involved practically, after this period you now go for the second phase of your professional exams. So, you see that it’s not a question of somebody having a two bedroom flat without sound lecturers, even Oron and Oceanography are crying for lecturers because most of their lecturers are part time because those who are qualified to teach are today needed even by companies too, so they create time to go on part time basis, before this time most Nigerians were going to Ghana for their mandatories because we don’t have what it takes to issue those certificates.
Elongated tenure as president, need for elections
In 1998, I was only a zonal officer after which I rose to become a zonal chairman, in 2006, I contested for the presidency, but in the actual sense, when I was even a treasure I was vocal because I had so many other jobs in my life apart from this job. I left school in 1980 and in 1981 I went to the Academy and since then, I have not known any other job but the marine job, I eat and sleep with it. When I was not the president, I was vocal because I knew what I had passed through and the vision I had, so its not a question of 10 years, my election is coming up in 2012 and I am in my second tenure.
Joblessness of members and inadequacy of vessels
It is not that my members can not get jobs, they can, but the influx of expatriates is affecting them from getting these jobs. Talking about waiver and the Cabotage regime, I was a member of the committee on Cabotage review and we gave our recommendations, it was the then minister of transport who initiated this committee to review Cabotage and find out why it is not working to the letter, credible Nigerians were there and we sat down for close to a year and came out with a blue print on how we can forge ahead, in the process, the minister was removed and another one appointed, he collected the document and locked it up and set his own committee on Cabotage and I told him pointedly to revisit the one we did. Nigerian flagged vessels are supposed to employ 100 per cent Nigerians; foreign vessels that are in our Cabotage trade are to employ 100 per cent Nigerians. The law of Cabotage says 100% ratings, 60% Nigerians and 40% the other way, but today they come in with a clause called waiver which means we don’t have the qualified hands, before a waiver is granted, you apply to NIMASA, the file is taken to Abuja for ministerial approval, we all know that if I give you money first it is as good as you giving me the waiver because you can not return my money back to me whether you approve it or not. By collecting money from them it is assumed that the waiver is granted because you cannot collect the money back, they don’t even bother to ask the union if they have the required personnel before they grant the waivers, if you go on board some of these vessels now, you will see a foreign cook, does it mean we don’t have that too? Besides that some of our indigenous ship owners’ vessels are as old as 50 years but refurbished in America, Asia and so on, because they don’t meet the requirements, the NNPC don’t give them job because the product is an international one. The IMO have phased out single hull vessels but, 99% of ISAN vessels are single hull vessels so they don’t get jobs, the foreigners have taken up their jobs and this has led to ISAN forming a shipping company to compete with the foreign vessels. They want to raise the money by themselves and buy the vessel; thank God NIMASA came out with vessel acquisition fund. This is where NIMASA is making a mistake, if I carry a Tokunboh car that is not road worthy, should the road safety officer give me plate number? So when they bring these junks for registration and you reject them, then the owners will know that they are in trouble, but if you register them as Cabotage vessels then you must give those jobs, forget about IMO laws; single hull or double hull. Because these vessels don’t get jobs, the cadets who are coming out cannot be absolved, even if you put them on board for their sea time, they are static in one place and this is why ISAN turned themselves into task force arresting foreign vessels bringing product into the jetties and they were having their way. I know that if we are very sincere to ourselves and we want to save the industry and the country in general by sending away half of these so called expatriates from our waters, then Nigerians can get jobs, the jobs are so many.
Task force to tackle these fake merchant navies
Task force issue is a different thing, when you are a trade union, you will have your limitations, if a company is doing something wrong, I don’t have the right to go and lock up the gates of the company, there are procedures of doing things, the labour laws are there, the right of dialogue and ultimatum, the best thing is to go quietly with your members not to destroy properties but to dialogue. If I have a task force what are they going to do? Will I give them gun? I don’t have a task force because no genuine trade union organization operates with task force.
Resolution of the crisis between the Edema group and the Navy
The navy has no right to prosecute anybody I have visited them at the Beecroft Naval base and I gave them everything they needed, the best they could do is hand them over to the Police and they were taken to Abuja, the case has been static afterwards, but I don’t know the charges levelled against them.
Discussion about this post