“WAIVER OR NO WAIVER, YOU CANT FORCE A SEAFARER ON A SHIP OWNER”…Capt Omotesho
Captain Abiodun Omoteso does not need any introduction. He is in a class of his own; a first generation master mariner and a passionate believer in the ability of Nigerian seafarers; if exposed to adequate training. This week, we bring you his views on sensitive industry issue.
“WAIVER OR NO WAIVER, YOU CANT FORCE A SEAFARER ON A SHIP OWNER”…Capt Omotesho
Captain Abiodun Omoteso does not need any introduction. He is in a class of his own; a first generation master mariner and a passionate believer in the ability of Nigerian seafarers; if exposed to adequate training. This week, we bring you his views on sensitive industry issue.
As first generation industry practitioner, what is your take on the state of the maritime industry in 2010, before we go to specifics?
Well, in 2010 we were monitoring the activities of the maritime industry, it looked like stagnation; the industry was not heading anywhere, it was just stagnant and in an industry like maritime, stagnation can never bring any development, we were just revolving around issues without having any specific solution. In 2010, we were talking about Cabotage, everywhere you go, it was nothing but Cabotage. In 2010, there were committee, you how many committees that we saw in 2010. Try and find out the result of the committee, you’ll find out that everything is still under implementation until 2011 came. But within that period, there were some sector of the industry that were making impact; the concessionaires, were turning- in ships in and out although they have their own limitations on issues that are beyond them; one of it is pilotage. You can’t do anything about it because NPA is still in charge of pilotage. But as far as 2010 is concerned, we saw changes because ships were coming in although, under harsh conditions, but the concessionaires ensured that immediately the ship comes in, the ship is going out, if they can take a crane and dump the cargo for the ship to leave under two hours; they’ll do that. So, I think we are making headway in that section of the industry. But what will you think of 2010 in terms of security; it went bad there is nothing like port security again, I was reading in the newspaper the other day that they had mobile policemen inside the port. That sounds a bit interesting; it shows that there is no security, if you have to get mobile policemen to be in the port. The people who are not supposed to be in the port are found there and I think that’s one of the major problems because the reaction of NPA tells you exactly what is on the ground: stop unwanted from coming into the port, oh I can’t do that now, so I better tell the mobile policemen to be arresting them when they come in. The question is: how did they get in? But we are getting results in other areas such as ships coming in, dredging, and towage.
You mentioned the issue of insecurity on Nigeria waters, what do you think is responsible, for this?
You see if you look at safety, you need to look at two aspects of it; safety in terms of security and safety of the ships themselves; are they in class? And are they abiding with the international Maritime Organization safety convention? When we talk about security, we didn’t have these issues in the late 70s and the 80s when Navy was really Navy, we just need two Naval vessels patrolling and everybody gets scared. I don’t know the last time you find the Navy ship going through the break waters, No! This is the same Navy that performed excellently in ECOMOG, they were always over there, but I get worried now because the Navy tends to prove that they have no money and they have to depend on NIMASA for anything they want to do. If they need patrol boat, Oh NIMASA, we need security, NIMASA; we want boat, now we go to NPA to buy it for us. This is not the Nigerian Navy we used to know. Is this ministry of defence not there to supply whatever the Navy needs, do they have any budget? Do they even think of buying another ship? The only ship that was introduced by the navy as at 2or 3 years ago was the one donated by United State’s government. The Navy has turned to patrolling inland waters of Lagos and Sapele to look for robbers. There was a conference on piracy that NIMASA organized, at the conference, Navy was asking for stipends, saying they have no boat. Is NIMASA going to buy boat? NIMASA will collect from merchant navy vessels and use it for the Navy? No. it means the ministry of defence is poor. If defence can’t come out with a programme to renew fleet for the Navy, the issue of the security will just be on and off.
But some people have canvass the establishment of two things; some said Coastguard and some said Maritime Security Agency, which one will you go for?
When you talk of Coastguard, it seems to be the best option.
Not MASECA?
The government can’t handle this security that we are talking about, the government can’t handle it, if it comes under the government, it’s alright, but there must be a way of partnering with the private sector. We are not talking of Coast Guard here, because it can’t work anywhere, imagine if there is a problem in Cote d’ Ivoire and you say that your regional Coast guard should go and quell it ? No it can’t work. So, let us forget this talk of regional Coast guard, it can never happen. If you’re talking of Coast guard, let’s look at the problem we have presently, even within the Nigerian Navy, tomorrow there is no diesel, and tomorrow we have to change officers. But can we sit down and modify the sort of security that we want because Coast guard function has a lot to it, it goes along with something like search and rescue, they are like ships that do not come into port, they stay permanently offshore, they have the logistics and the communications facilities to operate. If you are having a coast guard, we are talking about saving the lives of the people that are in danger within Nigerian coast, we can not deceive ourselves that we have regional understanding on search and rescue, what are you searching in nine countries of the sub -region, this is totally imbalance in terms of security, this is why we need to rethink because, as I said, there are too many advisers and committees but nothing comes out of the committees.
Are saying is that the Navy as an Institution has failed the maritime sector?
You tell me as a journalist, have you seen a naval craft within the base or moving towards the breakwaters? And when you talk of security, what is the role of the marine police? Marine police is well equipped to look at the problems of our inland waters and the problems within the Lagos waters. Occasionally, we go out and see what is obtainable, the marine police itself is everywhere on the inland water ways, and the marine and the Navy begin to fight as if there is something there. If we are going to face security, then we must come out with the specific functions of the agency , it is not that the Navy is going in one way while the Police will be going the other way, it is only in this country that I see the navy riding in the bus and saying that they are maintaining security, a respected navy does not stay offshore, they are supposed to be at sea and constantly at it; monitoring the movement of oil rigs, movement of smugglers and monitoring insecurity. I expect more from the navy because they are not doing enough, if we didn’t know the Nigerian navy before then we might say that this is the standard of performance, but this is not the standard of performance of the navy that was conducting exercises with the merchant navy. I remember the present governor of Adamawa state when he was chief of Naval staff, there was one exercise on Nigerian waters, I have forgotten the name of the operation, but it extended from Lagos right down to Calabar where merchant navy vessels participated, today there is nothing like that anymore, what happened in those days was that the security was there, but now are you feeling the presence of the navy on the coastal waters? Navy is power, their presence alone outside Lagos shows that there is security, so we need to look into this aspect because security is the major problem, insurance premium is going up, freight rate is going up, everything is going up under the name of security, I won’t be surprised if some seafarers begin to ask for extra money to begin to come into Nigeria because of insecurity, this is how bad it is.
Why do you think the Delta ports are not patronised like Lagos ports?
We always take one step forward and ten steps backward; after the concessioning, the ports were divided into two, that is, the eastern port and the western port, this is just to create competition and that is the order in the maritime industry today. The shipping companies in the sub region collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s because of competition, we could not just compete in the international market. The National Assembly came and asked NPA to come back as a unit, if you say that today what we need is just the Nigerian Ports Authority ruling from its Marina headquarters, then it is a failure and that is what is putting Lagos ports under, is Lagos port the only port in Nigeria? We have ports in the Delta, like Warri port and Koko port, and we have Calabar and Port Harcourt ports. In Lagos port, there is no more room for expansion and you tell me Lagos port is a fantastic port without a single dry dock to attend to ships that have problems. I have seen ships that had accidents and they took emergency repairs to another dock outside Nigeria, do you know how much money comes in from maintenance of vessels, can they have a place to take about 25,000 deadweight vessel in Nigeria for repairs and dry dock? We are talking of indigenization and Nigerians having ships, do they now have ships and go to dry-dock in Ghana or that all their repairs should be done abroad? We have to go back to the basics, as far as the ports is concerned, the Delta ports are suffering, you want me to bring a container to Lagos and you want me to take the same ship to Calabar with the same NPA rate, if I decide to go to Calabar to discharge cargo, there is no way you are going to tell me that I should pay the same tariff because I am doing extra steaming, if we don’t introduce competition into the system, these ports will never see daylight, they said they have to dredge Calabar port, they have dredged it before, but do you see ships going to Calabar port? They will not go because the tariff is not in their favour. Calabar has a draught limitation of 6.5 meters, but, there are ships that can carry 400 containers to Calabar with 6.5 meters, but on what tariff? The ship owner is looking at the bottom line, if you look at the ports of South. Africa, they operate independently, but they are under the auspices of the South African ports, So, it’s not about dismantling Nigerian Ports Authority, what we are saying is that you create competition, take for instance Cote d’ Ivoire has two major port; they have another little port which is San Sandra, but San Pedro and the port of Abidjan have tough competition. In the Niger Delta today, you know how long they have been having problems with the port authority and the local pilot, they trained some of the local pilots, but there was no follow up because everybody is afraid of militancy, don’t the militants want their area to be developed? Because of an ordinary fight with the local pilots in the Escravos, there is no pilot that can do the job the Escravos pilots are doing, they are the ones piloting the British pipelines and that is where the fight is, they are the ones taking the ships in. As a ship owner, if I can get better services in Calabar I am ready to go to Calabar, the Koko port and Warri have natural depths, the only problem is the entrance, they are trying to build another port off Lagos called the deep sea port, if we even have a deep sea port can we not have up services to Calabar and Warri and the rest?
Going to Delta port is good, but there is this worry about the state of security in the Niger Delta, how do you feel?
I was reading IMB reports that piracy is reducing, what is the reason, it is because the government is taking up the issue of ex-militants, if you say the pirates are from Niger Delta and you are creating employment and training for them, is insecurity going to be with us permanently? Or is it when it is off that we start doing something positive, or you think the so called ex-militants don’t want any survival for themselves? They also want improvements; ex-militants are also human beings.
Are you also subscribing to the fact that government should use ex-militants to police the water ways?
I told you that I have addressed these so called ex-militants, I was scared when I was invited to address them, but when I came out, it was a different story; I knew that there is hope in this country. Militant are a group of people that the government think that they could abandon, and since the government is now looking into their cases, they want to belong to the system, we should not just see them as militants, they also want to survive, so when you talk about using them, some of them are versed in maritime-related endeavours; that they want to be security, they want to do underwater welding and so on, some are being sent out as seafarers. If you bring an ex-militant and give him a job in your oil rig, your rig is as secured as anything and by so doing they begin to secure the nation the way the government wants.
What do you think is responsible for the unstable management in NIMASA?
As at 2003 the job of NIMASA was straight forward; National Maritime Authourity, they are focused on international requirement for safety of ships, examinations and inspections, as well as the conventions of IMO and so on, it was controllable then because the functions are very easy and well marked out. At the same time you would remember that JOMALIC was set up to cater for seafarers, they made seafarers to have a sense of belonging, there was statistics of what the seafarers can do, the seafarers’ identity card and every other thing were rolling, then some people sat down in their wisdom and said they should be merged together with NMA and that this is what world bank says. If there is anything that people like us can be proud of today, it is that Nigerians have the seafarers, look at the Nigerian National Shipping Line, in terms of record, but then they erased JOMALICK and that time we had the statistics of Nigerian seafarers in the International fleet, go back to archives and ask companies like Palm Line and the rest of them about the performances of Nigerian seafarers, they will give kudos.
But there were problems in NMA at that time; even before NIMASA was created
How many times do people sit in NIMASA and look after the problems of NIMASA? Its either they are travelling abroad or they are calling them in Abuja, the job that is in NIMASA requires concentration and implementation of policies, if you take a new DG today, by tomorrow before he even enters the office, people would have reasons why he should go and that is why there is no stability. You can not invest in what NIMASA is doing because you don’t know what is going to happen, and NIMASA is a large body so they must find a way to restructure for efficiency, they are following the work of IMO and the work of ILO on seafarers labour, there is also the Memorandum of Understanding with the navy, and you have just one man, it’s like having IMO office, ILO office , world navy office under one man, its difficult.
Some people have argued that the problem of NIMASA will be solved if a professional is appointed
If you look at the Act establishing NIMASA, it clearly states who should be on board, in the first board that was set up by the government during NMA time, we had two master mariners, and they were the people that were giving directions. If you even bring a seasoned administrator to NIMASA today and you don’t have a technically balanced board, the man will be fighting and its either he fights the board or dances to their tune, and this is why there is the instability, that is an indication that there is a lot of things wrong, I have seen agencies where they put seasoned administrators but yet what happens? So there must be a professional on board, if you put a professional as DG, we will still have problems because some will call him a drunken sailor, but the support of any DG lies on the board because they are the government, it is only during the last board that it became clear that there is problem between the DG and the board.
There is a lot of unemployment among seafarers, are you not bothered?
If I am not bothered at this age I don’t know who else would be bothered because we are already passing out, at this age some of us should just be sitting and be thanking God, but we still have to come back because the back is shallow, there is no support from the back again and it comes to something. When we talk of the training of seafarers we are talking about the training of credible seafarers, not just to train, there is standard of training, tell me the institution that is implementing the international standard of training in this country.
Are you saying that MAN Oron is not competent to train?
MAN Oron is a school, just like the school in Igando (Lagos) and the others scattered all over Warri and other places where everybody is just issuing certificates the way they feel like, if you are dishing out 60 cadets annually , is that the requirement of this nation with the size of our maritime industry? Let’s say Oron is performing and Nigeria is producing 60 cadets every year, there were more than that in the 60s when NPA used to train, but the problem is that there is no credible structure and schools. We are not ashamed in this country, before independence we were sending people abroad for training, but surprisingly, in the region where we belong, after 50 years of independence, we are still sending people abroad and to Ghana for training because there is no credible institution in this country, these Nigerians that are serious cross over to Ghana where the certification is internationally accepted. And this is why waivers cannot work because you can not say that because you are a Nigerian you must work on ship that is trading on Nigerian waters, you must meet the manning requirement of a ship owner and that is why Cabotage has somersaulted, there is nothing you can do about Cabotage unless you have a situation where you are producing credible seafarers, the fault of the Cabotage Act is human and if they are not there, there is nothing Cabotage can gain, if you talk of ship building in Nigeria then you must have the shipyard to build the ship.
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