A frontline master mariner, Capt. Abiodun Omoteso, said on Friday that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had succeeded in implementing the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code.
Omoteso said this at a one-day seminar organised by the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in Lagos.
Nigeria commenced the Implementation of the ISPS Code in 2004 to improve security in its ports.
A frontline master mariner, Capt. Abiodun Omoteso, said on Friday that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had succeeded in implementing the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code.
Omoteso said this at a one-day seminar organised by the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in Lagos.
Nigeria commenced the Implementation of the ISPS Code in 2004 to improve security in its ports.
The code is a set of security measures introduced by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the U.S.
Omoteso, who was once the managing director of the now-liquidated Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) , said NIMASA was the designated authority to coordinate the ISPS activities, adding that the agency had been doing well with the implementation since 2012.
“A committee was set up by the government in 2004 to implement the ISPS code but the committee got it wrong from day one and the implementation became problematic.
“ The former committee that was set up by the government went straight to implement the code which caused some problems when some foreign ships come into the country.
“For every nation that endorsed the ISPS Code, there is the Designation Authority (DA) and the DA is NIMASA,“ NAN quotes the mariner as saying.
He said that the DA in all maritime nations of the world was the flag State Administration “which is NIMASA in Nigeria’’.
Omoteso commended NIMASA’s efforts in quick implementation of the code in spite of not given the implementation to the agency since 2004 when the ISPS code came into existence.
He said that members of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) had since 2010 done a lot of amendments for effective implementation of the code.
The mariner said that if any country refused to comply with the ISPS code, ships would not come into that country because there would be lack of security facilities.
He said that a lot of security measures had been carried out in the terminal in compliance with the ISPS Code.
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