Captain Iheanacho Ebubeogu is a Master Mariner and Former General Manager, Marine of the Nigerian Ports Authority. He had this interaction with maritime journalists after his presentation at the recent Nigerian Association of Master Mariners quarterly paper presentation in Lagos. Our Correspondent; Joshua Yousouph was there.
· Blue Economy Ministry should have Directorate of Blue Economy and Directorate of Marine Space Administration
You mentioned in your presentation, the importance of coordination in the marine and blue economy sector. Can you speak more on your suggestion for a Coordinating Minister for the Blue Economy?
In the nation’s finance sector, the Federal Ministry of Finance also doubles as the coordinating ministry of the economy. The underlying reason for this is to have a unified administrative framework for all the actors in the economy to be galvanized with standardized operations. The coordinating Ministry exercises controls and leadership by virtue of its position. The control enables the necessary action that the Honorable Minister could take, having considered all stakeholders’ interests.
We have gone a step further in this regime to also do the same thing for Dr Ali Pate, who is the Minister for Health and Social welfare. So he also is a coordinating minister. He has two caps in one. This ministry is responsible for developing and implementing health policies, improving healthcare access, coordinating health research and providing effective disease control across the country.
In the same vein, it is only appropriate that the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy headed by the Honorable Minister be designated as also the coordinating minister of the blue economy. Within the marine spaces are several agencies of government such as the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Ministry of Agriculture & Water Resources, Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, Ministry of Interior, etc. These agencies of government have interplay of forces in the marine spaces that impact on their functions. Hence the need to review the nomenclature and status of the honorable minister of marine and blue economy to read “the minister of marine and blue economy and the coordinating minister of the blue economy” for effective coordination; availing executive focus of control and leadership.
I am saying this given the heterogeneity of the interest groups especially in the private sector, where you have players, and then those players are regulated by too many people. One thing that happens with businessmen is that they are always looking for the least area of resistance. If they come to NPA, they go to where their brother is a Director. You should have a clearing house.
Let me give you an example. I was a GM Marine at NPA when the Late President Yar’adua approved Oguta river ports in Imo state for NIWA. In fact, NIWA did not come to us that day. So the Minister at that time (Idris Umar) said, you are a master mariner, there’s something you can do. Tell Mr. President the justification of having a port in Oguta. Overnight, I cooked up something. It is not that I’m brilliant, but the grace of God came upon me. So when I presented my case, the late Yar’adua approved it. Years later, a Governor called me and said, I want to collaborate with NIWA to develop Oguta Lake. He asked how much do you want for your consultancy? I said, no money yet. Allow me to do some initial research. This is what I discovered. The Oguta Lake connects the Degema River through the Orashi River. And Orashi River links up with Degema which will link you up to other channels that will now make you connect to Onne port or Rivers port, which is the intent for inland water transport to link with maritime transport. But guess what? At Degema, NDDC has gone to build a bridge that is so high that even at high waters, a fisherman will have to bend down before he can pass. The intention is good. But because there is no coordination, there is no clearing house; a good intention has spoilt another good intention. Who is NDDC and NIWA? They are both government agencies. But because of lack of collaboration, lack of proper coordination, where we would have had a clearing house, you see that this intent has turned against the other. And it is happening almost everywhere. Look at pipe laying, right of way and all those things. And that’s why I’m saying that there is a relationship between coordination, collaboration and control.
Now, control and leading are two tools of management; if you have read management in school. And to give the Minister for Marine and Blue Economy that indirect way of exercising leadership and control is by coordination. If he coordinates, the first thing he’s going to do is to constitute a technical committee, with other fellow ministers who have public interest in that place. And what do they do? Anybody who has anything to do, no matter where he’s coming from, must go through a clearing house. When there is a clearing house, there must be sanitization. And that sanitization is a function of the sustainability of the environment, which goes into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sustainability is very important. So that is exactly why I am asking for coordination. It’s not because I am biased for the sector I come from. I believe that if the government makes the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy the coordinating minister of the Blue economy, he will now make sure that somebody is listening to the director, who is talking about how the marine spaces will be sanitized, governed and regulated properly for this blue economy to excel. At the same time, the environment is sustained.
Nigerians today tends to focus on chasing money in the Blue Economy. But sustainability is about managing resources for future generation. How do we now bring sustainability to the fore?
That was why I had to come up with that illustration in my presentation, where I said the balancing act. In my presentation you will find out that one of the things I recommended for the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy is that I am suggesting we should have two Directorates in the Ministry headed by two Directors. One should be the Director of Blue Economy and the other one should be Director of Marine Space Administration. They will be all answerable to the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy. In the internal structuring of the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry, it’s good to have somebody, just like in the days of Nigerian National Shipping Line, where the commercial people are saying “Load that Cargo” and there is another Marine Superintendent that is saying “We need to do this Survey or we need to go to dry dock” and all that. Those two balancing is why those ships survive; while they survived, because everybody is not saying “go and look for money” while others are saying “this is due”. Even today, all these our big men; while they are doing politics and everything, they have their doctors, either here or abroad, that reminds them that “Oga, it’s time for you to go for your annual medical checkup, leave APC or PDP, go and do this thing now, and come back”. If you leave them, they may collapse one day and people will be blaming their political detractors or home trouble. No, it’s not home trouble, it’s just that you didn’t remember to go and look at this your engine called the body that you are using to go and do all kinds of things. You didn’t remember that you need to go and look at it properly. And that’s why some people today are paying some doctors, they don’t do any job than to remind them of their medical checkups, and when you refuse, they will inform your insurance company that they have informed the man three times. And then your life insurance company writes saying if anything happens to you, they will not be paying anything because your doctor has informed them that you have been told, reminded three times to come for medical check-up, but you ignored it.
For sustainability, we need to strengthen that component of our ministry, where somebody will stand there and say while we are pushing our endeavors through blue economy activities, the sustainability, the sanitization, and the proper governance of marine space is very important and must be attended to.
You referenced UNCLOS extensively. How do we enforce some of its provisions, especially beyond 12 nautical miles into the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), where others exploit our resources?
In case of the EEZ, well, there is a division of labor and the way to claim your rights in EEZ are of two ways. One is to enforce it by international/ diplomatic forum. If anybody annoys you, you go there and sort it out. You remember when we were struggling with Bakassi, they went to international court, that’s one way. The other way is to use your internal mechanism, and that is where we need to strengthen the governance of marine space. That’s where internal enforcement will now come to play to complement all this international adjudication, to make sure we have a full control of our maritime domain.
We’ve also talked in the industry about Admiralty Courts. Don’t you think we should revisit that idea to address maritime disputes more effectively?
The Admiralty court is still in place. It was after independence that we changed the Admiralty court to what you call the Federal High Court. It is the one on Queens Drive in Lagos Island. That is the Admiralty Court. It is now called federal high court. All admiralty matters go to there. You talked about disputes, yes; the administrative court will handle those disputes. If you want to find further how cases, administrative cases or maritime cases are handled in Nigeria, it’s good for us to probably one day invite you and invite people from the Maritime Lawyers Association. They will be able to give you a compendium of how they are handling cases and their challenges in that domain. I will not be able to tell you that. I know if you want to get that, we can invite the members of the Maritime Law Association to address you on that.
Having said all this, what concrete steps should we take to bring about effective marine governance?
The first thing is to recognize all the stakeholders. Recognize their interest. Know the inclusion of those interests and those you are going to exclude. That is one thing. The second thing I have recommended is this: That for effective governance of the marine space, we need to review and see how we can restructure the executive structure of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, so that the Minister will also be the coordinating minister of the Blue Economy for control and leading through condition. The third one is that for the minister himself to do it well, let him not just carry the structure he inherited from Ministry of Transport, but to now establish two directorates. One, Directorate of Blue Economy headed by a Director, and a Directorate of Marine Space Administration. With those two, he can be sure that he is receiving all it takes in ensuring that all the balancing and functional aspects of moving the marine and Blue Economy is sustained.
How does local knowledge contribute to our understanding of marine ecosystems? Can it be integrated effectively with scientific knowledge for decision making?
Let me give you an example. We have two people in my place. You know their names? One is Inukunme, the other one is Sophia. You know what that means? Inukunme was born the day my people first of all witnessed the eclipse. When this man grew up, we wanted to know when he was born. We had to go to the missionaries to say, what year did that eclipse happen? They said, that was the year he was born. So that was why they named him Inukunme. The other one was Sophia. Sophia actually means Surveyor. That was the first time the Surveyor General came to my place. And that was the time she was born. So they named her Sophia. So for that one to know her age, we had to go and find out when Surveyor General first came. So, traditional observation doesn’t keep data. They don’t keep records. And they don’t have boundaries. As it is yesterday, if anything changes, they don’t query. Rather, they say, it’s the way God wants it. So that is why despite the fact that there could be inference of facts in their data, science does not know how to place it, unless science goes to re-dig it and only use them as source of data, not for authentication. That’s it.
