The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency

Apprehension is in the air again, just like it was about one and half years ago, when Dr Ade Dosunmu was about to be removed as the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).It has always been the lot of the maritime industry to be apprehensive over NIMASA every one year or thereabout.  Now, attention has shifted to the incumbent, Mr Temisan Omatseye; who only a few months back had briefed the press about the achievement of the management team which he leads.  
From available records, between 1987 when the then-National Maritime Authourity (NMA) was founded and now, the corporate head office of NIMASA at 4 Burma Road in Apapa has seen 10 chief executives.
When the NMA was founded, the intention of government was to have an agency that will engineer a rapid development of the nation’s shipping and maritime sector by creating  more ‘bottoms’ for ship owners and more opportunities for indigenous participation in sea- borne trade.
In a nutshell, apart from its general responsibilities for maritime safety administration, commercial shipping, port and flag state control and lately, Cabotage, Nigeria’s maritime administration agency (in this case, NMA) was created to improve the lot of Nigerian ship owners and other categories of operators in the sector.
And to do this, the lot has at different times fallen on at least eight Nigerians; all of whom have ‘fallen short’ in one way or the other and removed controversially.
For those who still remember the early days of NMA, the agency was only an avenue for award of contracts; albeit, without consideration for execution of its core mandate. The agency also became known for uncoordinated and ridiculous cargo allocation; hence, cargoes which ought to have been carried by (non-existent) indigenous ship owners were offered to proprietors of brief case shipping companies. 
Much later, a good opportunity to retrace its step was offered in the name of the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund (SASBF). But, rather than judiciously managing the funds which accrued from statutory payments that were made to NMA by putting in place checks that would ensure its sustenance, NMA only succeeded in creating millionaires out of non-ship owning interests.
The birth of Cabotage in 2003 only raised the hope and of course, the stakes, for NMA as indigenous ship owners who had waited patiently for its full implementation sought reprieve from highly favoured and monopolistic foreign owners.  
About 23 years of NMA and about three years of NIMASA and with six and three chief executive officers respectively, it is apt to take stock of a few things and draw correlation.
First, would the maritime industry have been better-off without the merger of both the then-NMA and the then-Joint Maritime Labour Industrial Council (JOMALIC). In other words, did the merger overwhelm subsequent chief executives? Is NIMASA suffering from the carry-over of its ineptitude while it was called NMA? Is it true that from NMA to NIMASA, the problem has been with the appointment of non-professionals to manage the nation’s apex maritime regulatory agency? Are all these posers collectively responsible for the high turn- over of chief executives of the agency? The assertion that NMA/NIMASA has not had professionals at the helm of affairs may no longer hold water as former DG, Usoro and incumbent DG are maritime lawyers.
We are of a strong conviction that the office of chief executive of NIMASA (and even NMA) has been over politicized. Each minister wants his own protégé to be the director general. It started towards the tail end of the tenure of Alhaji Munir Jafar’ when he was removed on the instruction of the then-Head of State (now late) General Sani Abacha who directed his minister of transport (now deceased too) Major General Ibrahim Dahiru Gumel toensure that he was replaced. He was replaced with Alhaji Buba Galadima who was later to use NMA to allegedly fund the transmutation campaign of General Abacha.
From Buba, the agency has had John Egesi ( a maritime economist) , Dr George Eneh (a World Bank transport expert), Ferdinand Agu (an Architect), Festus Ugwu (an engineer), and Mrs Mfon Ekong Usoro (a maritime lawyer) and Dosunmu (a PhD holder in public administration) and  the incumbent; Mr Temisan Omatseye(a maritime lawyer).
The merger of NMA  with NIMASA is a good one, but the realization of the objective of the lofty idea has been a Herculean task owing largely to the culture of intrigues and orchestrated ‘belly- aches’  which has been the lot of the agency. Were it not so, perhaps Omatseye will not be fighting this current battle of survival.  Usoro’s removal and Omatseye’s current travails further buttresses our postulation that each successive minister wants his/her protégé to be the boss of NIMASA.
Whichever way the pendulum swings, the ultimate losers are the stakeholders whose aspirations are always short-lived each time the battle line is drawn again.