There wasn’t any particular attention paid to removal of wrecks and derelicts on Nigerian waters until the emergence of Mrs. Mfon Ekong Usoro in 2006 as the pioneer director general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). She, it was who commenced removal of wrecks on Lagos waters. She even made it a media event as she took media men to the popular Kirikiri Lighter Terminal phase two where officials of a private company had commenced work on removing some of the wrecks and derelicts.
She had told reporters at the event that scores of wrecks which had earlier been discovered in Lagos were being removed and that after the Lagos exercise, a similar exercise would commence at the Port Harcourt axis. She equally confirmed that the exercise would gulp some huge money.
After what eventually turned out to seem like a media show, nothing was heard about wrecks removal until she was controversially removed from office and her successor, Dr Ade Dosunmu (who incidentally was part of the executive management under Usoro) came on board as the next NIMASA helmsman and the singsong called wrecks removal re-echoed once again.
In-between the tenure of Usoro and Dosunmu, the Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), also came up to “defend” its wreck removal mandate. It wasn’t a very loud agitation, but it was loud enough to attract the attention of former minister of transport, Alhaji Ibrahim Bio who, in January 2010, inaugurated a 14-member Committee headed by Rear Admiral Abiodun Olukoya (Rtd) on what he called “auditing, wrecking, clearing and sale of residual metals on Nigeria waterways”.
The former minister, like both NPA and NIMASA, had hinged the committee’s assignment on “the need to clear our navigational channels of barges and boats as well as abandoned vessels that have constituted hazard to safe navigation”.
He had lamented that “ it is a matter of utmost concern to note that these seized barges and boats now litter the ports, jetties and channels of several Naval facilities in Warri, Sapele, Lagos, Calabar and Port Harcourt having been detained for long period of time due to bureaucratic bottlenecks and litigation which have hampered their early release.
During one of his rare media chat, the managing director of NPA, Malam Abdusallam Mohammed had denied any rift between his organisation, NIMASA and NIWA over wrecks removal. But, he also explained that the three organisations have statutory responsibilities in that respect. “The Act establishing the Nigerian Ports Authority has provided for wrecks removal as part of the responsibility of NPA, similarly the Act establishing NIMASA provides wrecks removal responsibilities, so also the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA)”, he stated.
While all these were going on, the new minister, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman has also come with his own ‘intervention’ by directing that all current efforts at removing wrecks be stopped immediately.
The new minister reportedly said that he was not satisfied with on-going works on removal of wrecks and that the ministry would soon come up with a policy on wrecks removal.
The new move came weeks before the committee which his predecessor had set up while in office is expected to submit its report.
The main concern here is the obvious attention that the multi-million dollar wrecks removal is getting from every successive minister and chief executive of relevant agencies under the ministry of transport.
Has anyone bordered to ask what became of the efforts of Usoro and Dosunmu at NIMASA, what about what NPA has done so far, and of course, what is the motive behind the enthusiasm of both Bio and his successor to remove wrecks during their tenure.
As important as removal of wrecks and derelicts is and as important as freeing our waterways and channels are, the attention that it is getting is beginning to cause eyebrow to rise.
It was so important that the immediate past minister of transport had to set up a committee, it is also on the agenda of his successor that one of the first major pronouncements after his appointment was to ban CEOs of agencies from putting their eyes in the area of wreck removal. It was also very important to the CEOs that none of them would let go, even though there are other issues that are begging for attention.
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