The Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA) has queried the Memorandum of Understanding between the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) saying that it is illegal, unconstitutional and as such should never be renewed.
The shipowners noted that all over the world, NIMASA is the only maritime agency that is militarized by the deployment of a garrison of the Nigerian Navy under the Maritime Guard Command.
The Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA) has queried the Memorandum of Understanding between the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) saying that it is illegal, unconstitutional and as such should never be renewed.
The shipowners noted that all over the world, NIMASA is the only maritime agency that is militarized by the deployment of a garrison of the Nigerian Navy under the Maritime Guard Command.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily exclusively last week, President of NISA, Captain Niyi Dada Labinjo condemned the Acting Director General of NIMASA; Mr. Haruna Baba Jauro who visited the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Adm. Ibok-Ete Ibas and solicited that the MoU be renewed.
Labinjo said that the MoU is unknown to the law because the laws of the Navy already mandated it to provide supports for agencies like NIMASA, Nigerian Immigration Service and the Nigerian Customs Service, in the discharge of their duties.
"In the light of what Jauro (NIMASA DG) is doing now, Jauro says he wants to review the MoU he has with the Navy, this was what he said when he went to visit the Nigerian Navy reccently"
"It is absolute rubbish, it has no provisions in the law, NIMASA is the only maritime authority in the world that is militarized. NIMASA is the only authority that has a garrison, and who is commanding that garrison? NIMASA"
Capt Labinjo stressed that it is wrong to cede part of the Nigerian Navy to a civil organization like NIMASA for it to have command over.
He also said that militarization of NIMASA does not support commercial activities on Nigerian waters.
"If God (forbid), a Navy boy in the command of NIMASA shoots somebody and the person dies, who takes the liability? They will not hold NIMASA, but the Navy; meanwhile it is not the Navy that deployed him to do the destruction"
"If 100 boys are sent out by NIMASA and all of them are killed by pirates, who will be responsible? Can NIMASA DG go before the Commander-in-Chief to explain that the boys died under his watch?
"The Nigerian constitution created Nigerian Navy as well as NIMASA as separate government agencies; they are to help manage the regulation of maritime.
There is already a constitutional provision which called upon the armed forces of Nigeria to provide support for the Customs, NIMASA, and Immigration in the performance of the duties, so what they are doing (MoU) is unknown to the law", he argued.
"It is entrenched in the laws of the Navy to provide support for these agencies and not necessarily to provide them with a garrison" Labinjo said.
The NISA President said that the Chief of Naval Staff and the DG of NIMASA should not be seen to be sharing the command of the Navy.
According to him, the DG NIMASA's escort is presently larger than that of the Chief of Naval Staff, while his Executive Directors also go around with military orderlies.
Drawing analogy from the security system in the United States, he said "In America they make use of Coast Guard for the policing of their waters and vessels, the maritime authority is embedded with the Navy and not for Navy to be embedded in NIMASA".
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