“Someone needs to talk to Amaechi that sometimes, he needs to control his tongue. He talks too much”
In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde and Joshua Yousouf, Prince Ayo Adedoyin, a member of Nigeria Shipowners Association, talks about shipping and ship ownership in Nigeria. He also opens up on the controversial CVFF and the NSDP
As a ship-owner, what is your assessment of the shipping industry in Nigeria?
If I will use myself as an example, the shipping industry has not been that favourable to me and to my company as a whole. This is because over time, we have invested so much in acquiring vessels and these vessels were acquired based on contracts received from the so-called IOCs and the rest. But at the end of the day, we were not protected. The law that was meant to protect us was there but the people who are meant to implement the law to making sure that we get the benefit of that law were not there for us. So majority of our assets were just there for many years practically doing nothing. I don’t think Nigeria as a country is actually ready to encourage or develop that side of the economy. I don’t think they are just ready. That is just the reality.
How engaged are Nigeria ship-owners, what quantum of vessels do they have?
Vessels are not like cars that you just have money and you buy. You buy vessels because you have the need for that vessel. For example, you cannot just buy a service boat and just berth somewhere. You buy service boats because there is a contract; which means there is use for it. But at the end of the day when you don’t even have that use; where the majority of the contracts are not there for Nigerians. I actually laugh when the few that have made so much noise about the opportunity in the industry, not looking at the percentage of what should be coming to us as ship owners. But they end up celebrating mediocrity. But the truth is, I don’t think this industry has gotten what we should be getting.
Do you think if the national fleet or national carrier is put in place, some of these issues will be resolved?
I don’t think the National Carrier will be buying service boats. I think the National Carrier will be dealing with freighters such as container carriers and big vessels like that. But the truth is, it is a different thing having the vessels and also a different thing putting the vessels into use. This is because if the trade agreement is not well-served, we may just have vessels and they have practically nothing to do. Majority of the problem that we have now is that the export sector is not that great, so majority of the vessels that come into Nigeria go back empty or half-empty. They sometimes go back with empty containers that they brought. So if you set up a national fleet, under what guise are you setting up the National fleet? Will there be more cargo for the National fleet to carry from here? So the Bilateral trade and everything will still need to be looked at in order to protect that Fleet when you start buying them or else, it will just be a waste of money.
They have been pushing for this National Fleet for a while now.
Yes, it is necessary. We had them before, but what did we do with them? Why did it fail? We need to look at all those. Yes, if we have the National fleet maybe it will have tankers. If we change the mode of sales of our crude oil, from FOB to CIF maybe then they will be able to carry. But when you sell on a FOB basis, you are actually allowing the buyer to bring in their own tankers. So they may still look at your tankers and said they are not good for them. Until that FOB issue is looked into, addressed and changed, we may have National Fleet that will practically be doing nothing.
The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi has described Nigerian ship owners as unserious as regards the Singaporean ship deal
I am not someone who talks down on people, but respect begets respect. I am sorry, Rotimi Amaechi talks rubbish sometimes. He keeps talking about this Singapore trip that he went to. Who did he go with? Did he invite ship owners to come with him? Did he invite the Nigerian banks to look at an arrangement that will favour us? If you say that they said they will do 60 per cent, while we bring 40 per cent, what kind of arrangement is that? Does that make any sense to you? In a sane world where things work, if they said there is funding and the ‘locals’ will contribute 10 to 20 per cent, that is still sellable. How many Nigerians can say he wants to buy a ship for about 30 million dollars and they are saying you should bring 10 million dollars. Where is the 10 million dollars going to come from? I think Rotimi Amaechi must gave gone to Singapore to arrange his own business thing. He fell flat on his face and he is blaming other people. I am sorry, Rotimi Amaechi has not been fair to the Nigerian Maritime Industry at all. If he has done half of what he has done in the Railway industry, I think we will be far better than where we are today. I think someone needs to talk to him to make him understand that sometimes he needs to control his tongue. He talks too much.
It has been alleged that Nigerian ship owners did not support the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme.
Support why? How many ships are still there working? Can they support by berthing in Marina? Majority of the vessels are there in Marina.
Are you saying there are no ships?
The ships don’t have work. You can only train people when you are working and the vessels are sailing. Considering how many vessels have work and the number of people you want to train, then it is practically like a waste of time. I think Government should be more concerned about getting work for the vessels because majority of these people are in debt. We bring in vessels based on contract and the contract is terminated without cause and the government is there looking. We write letters to the likes of NAPIMS and they can’t do anything. Who is deceiving who? Am I going to train people in my dreams? When I have vessels that are not working and I still have to maintain it, keep running the engine and keep the staff on board. A lot of Nigerian ship owners have run into debts and I mean big ones. So I really don’t understand how you can support. I am sorry, you cannot give what you don’t have.
Your association (NISA) is still factionalized. How comfortable are you with this?
When there is a crack, then that means something is wrong and I don’t think one will be comfortable with what it is. When people feel because they are still getting some kind of business they are more superior to people who started and funded the association and they start seeing themselves as the good ones, they should remember that the so-called people you are leaving now; too had that opportunity before that was why you could come on board. But if you feel they are no longer useful to you because you feel you are grown, when the whirlwind comes, you will need people to support you. It is sad but we are working very hard to bring back the association. We are looking at all the possibilities and why it failed in order to correct them to have a robust organization or association. I guess with time; we will get there. It is not easy. It is very easy to destroy but very difficult to build.
Sometimes ago we learnt a committee was set up to unify the divided house. What is the update on this?
The committee is still working; we are reaching out to people. We are trying to reach out to government agencies. A couple of them have been visited and more will still be visited. As I said, it is always very hard to rebuild. You just never know what you’re going to meet.
We have three Ship owners’ associations presently, that is SOAN, NISA and Ship Owners’ Forum.
I don’t know about Ship Owners’ Forum. I was part of what that Ship Owners’ Forum was. It was just a sitting that was put together in order to address the issues that we have in the industry. So they are not an association. To the best of my knowledge, that forum should not still be there. So if anybody is claiming or using it as a platform, then that person is being very deceitful because it was not set for that. The same person who is claiming to be the Chairman of the Forum is the same person that went to go and register SOAN. So you can actually see the desperation of wanting to cleave unto something that you don’t start. So I think with time, when we get to where we are going, there will be more exposure of all these deceits. We will address that.
Read Also: Shipping Position Interaction with Prince Ayo Adedoyin
We learnt that NISA is trying to resuscitate NIMAREX. How true is this?
Yes, it is true. But when you don’t have it, you don’t have it. You can see that a lot of them have tried to do what NIMAREX was doing have failed. But NIMAREX was successful because we were all involved. Everybody was willing to sacrifice to come out. You can see that they tried and I’ll say they failed. What we are trying to do now is to make sure NIMAREX comes back better by a partnership with the right people; such that if possible we won’t even rely on government funding. We will make it a privately- sponsored programme. We will get the right sponsors. We are already talking to one or two international companies whom we can work with and will be of direct benefit. They have already been doing this for years and they have the banks that will support. We are going to do the right thing and you know it takes time. But we want to get it right and very soon by His Grace, we are.
Would you say the Cabotage Act is a failure?
I won’t say it is. It is like you having a beautiful wife and you don’t appreciate her but there are people outside there who do. Because the Act has been used by different countries and it worked for them but you who wrote the law by calling your people to come up with it and you cannot implement it, is that anybody’s problem? The Cabotage Act is fantastic but the implementation is what is wrong.
What is your take on the delayed disbursement of CVFF?
First of all, you need to understand the genesis of this CVFF. it saddens me when we have government people talking about CVFF. CVFF is not the government’s money. CVFF is money that was contributed from proceeds from freights and contracts from local ship owners. The government is just meant to be a custodian of the money. Until that issue is sorted out and we determine who owns that money, we will continue to go in circles. I heard some people are trying to go to court to actually get an interpretation for that. I think that will solve the issue. If all these issues are not addressed and looked into, we will just be deceiving ourselves. But it is our money. It is not government money. So we should have the right to how we want to use the money; the government cannot dictate to us. Rotimi Amaechi cannot sit in Abuja and be talking about what he has not contributed a Kobo into. Has he ever owned a vessel? Does the Ministry he has been running for these years own one vessel or contributed one Kobo to the CVFF? And he sits there like the Lord and Mighty. Is it his money? It is not government money and that will be addressed, even if it takes us going to court to get another interpretation, we would do it. People like us contributed money to it, so we should have a right to decide how the money should be spent.
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