As part of efforts to enhance the fulfillment of its core mandate, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has received four units of 1,200Horse Power patrol boats to be used in policing the Nigerian waterways.
Each of the boats namely; NIMASA Lagos, NIMASA PortHarcourt, NIMASA Burutu and NIMASA Warri were acquired by Global West Vessel Specialist Limited as part of the subsisting Memorandum of Understanding between the company and the apex maritime regulatory agency.
As part of efforts to enhance the fulfillment of its core mandate, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has received four units of 1,200Horse Power patrol boats to be used in policing the Nigerian waterways.
Each of the boats namely; NIMASA Lagos, NIMASA PortHarcourt, NIMASA Burutu and NIMASA Warri were acquired by Global West Vessel Specialist Limited as part of the subsisting Memorandum of Understanding between the company and the apex maritime regulatory agency.
The four newly acquire boats are bullet-proof and they each carry a 300Horse Power that can run 50nautical miles per hour.
The delivery of the boats to NIMASA last week also coincided with the confirmation by the minister of transport, Alhaji Idris Umar Global West Vessel Specialist Limited has been contracted to supply 20 patrol vessels and that the company had already supplied eight out of the 20 vessels included in the contract agreement.
The minister, who spoke in the BBC Hausa Service and who did not mention the cost of the contract, however added that Global West will also consult for the government in securing the Nigerian coastline.
Explaining for the umpteenth time that the contract will not negatively affect the responsibility of the Nigerian Navy said that: “We did not say that the company will take over responsibility of the Nigerian Navy, the company’s job is to just buy the vessels and other components needed in securing the coastline. And the partnership reached has nothing to do with them taking over functions of the navy”.
According to him, “there is nothing like navy has failed; the issue is not that. The partnership is legal but not taking official functions of the navy. If we guard this coastline it will boost our revenue, and the reforms meeting we are doing is to bring change.”
But, while taking delivery of the boats at the Regional Search and Rescue Center in Kirikiri Lagos, the Director General of NIMASA, Mr. Ziakede Akpobolokemi explained that the acquisition of the boats is to enable NIMASA to go back to fulfilling its mandate which is maritime security and ensuring a pollution-free environment.
“We want to perform our statutory obligations, what the NIMASA Act told us to do is what we want to practicalize, from environment to safety, from safety to security and so on, our mandate is to provide safe marine environment, secure marine environment and a pollution- free marine environment” he stressed
Mr. Akpobolokemi who was speaking after a test-run of the boats boasted that there are no vessels in the country or even within the sub-region that can boast of same kinds of patrol boats in terms of speed and the control gadgets.
He assured that more boats with different configurations are expected to come into the country before the end of the year.
“What we have done is to get the private sector to provide these boats and man them while we will work in conjunction with the Nigerian Navy in keeping security and safety and in keeping the environmental laws” he said.
Also speaking after the test-run, the Managing Director of Global West Vessel Specialist Limited, Capt. Romeo Itima explained that the vessels are made of outboard engines for quick deployment in cases where they might have to be repaired.
He explained that the boats are customarily built and are bullet- proof, even as he disclosed that the boats are meant for Port Harcourt and Warri maritime zones and added that they will be deployed immediately to cover these zones.
Discussion about this post