Engineer Matthew Alalade (President Merchant Navy)
I support training of seafarers overseas, but there is need for government to accredit more versatile training institutions in Nigeria as well. The issue we are faced with as regards the NSDP is that some of the countries where our youths are sent to for training are not up to standard, we are far better than them. I believe we have both private and public maritime institutions that can train our people locally. Therefore we will advocate that NIMASA should go to these schools and empower, assess and encourage them instead of wasting the lean resources we have to capital flight sending students abroad and when they are done over there, no sea time experience. We have seen instances where the MAN Oron and School of Oceanography students perform better than those trained abroad. There is still the need for foreign training but it should be of high standards. There is no need to scrap the project rather to modify the training processes of the youths.
Barr. Osuala Nwagbara (Maritime Lawyer)
I do not subscribe to the call for the scrapping of the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP). The fact that Nigeria is having FOREX challenges today should not be a reason for truncating a laudable programme that will place Nigerian in a vantage position among the comity of maritime nations in the years ahead. The IMO has repeatedly stated that it looks to the African continent to meet the supply needs of seafarers by the year 2025. Nigeria is best placed in Africa to lead the supply of the needed seafarers. The future looks good for Nigeria to earn forex in several billions of Dollars yearly from hundreds of thousands of seafarers who may be working at home and abroad in the near future. But the seed of that prosperity of tomorrow must be planted today. Some people believe rather myopically that seafarers being trained in Nigeria today are sea pirates of the near future, just because we don't have enough ships to give them employment. It is easy to see the short-sightedness of that argument because seafaring is a global profession. Philippines depends largely on FOREX earned yearly and repatriated home by nearly 400,000 of its citizens working as seafarers globally. NIMASA should be encouraged to continue to sponsor NSDP. It is the way to go. All other institutions involved in the training of seafarers should be encouraged. Especially now that government appears ready to assist Nigerian operators to acquire ships with CVFF, training of seafarers should be stepped and all those who receive CVFF assistance should have a sustainable seafarer training and development programme.
Tunji Obagbo (Fin and Admin POTEMAN)
The NSDP has come to stay, it’s a good project aimed at churning out qualified seafarers. Nigerians have benefited from the programme without considering the number and if it continues to exist more people will benefit from it, but if it is scrapped then there will be a vacuum and nobody will see the opportunity to train manpower or will the government bring another programme to replace the present NSDP that will be of assistance to the seafarers?
Comrade John Okpono (Asst Secretary, Merchant Navy)
The training abroad is expensive; some of the schools to the best of our knowledge are not up to standard when compared to what we have in Nigeria. Again there is no automatic sea term experience for these cadets after the overseas training and the problem is that after the huge sum spent on these students they still come back to Nigeria without any surce for sea time. The money spent on NSDP is enough to acquire ships for the students therefore there is need for government to look inward at this point in time because Rome was not built in a day. So many master mariners today graduated from the MAN Oron and College of Fisheries of this world, yet they are doing very fine as we speak.
Francis Omotosho (Senior Special Assistant To ANLCA President)
Government should not scrap the NSDP programme, a lot of people have benefited from it, many Nigerians have been exposed through it, at least I am aware of one or two persons that have benefited, but you know that in Nigeria there is the hand of corruption in everything, so anybody that is going to handle that project would think twice, but the scheme is a welcomed idea because so many young chaps are interest in seafaring but they are not well to do, they don't have the money, but NSDP has assisted them to pursue their objectives. But my advice is that the element of corruption should be removed from the scheme. MAN Oron is there to cater for other cadets aspiring to become seafarers, the school should also be developed because it also has its peculiar problems, corruption is also there., MAN Oron should be equipped and upgraded to a degree status.
Oliver Omajuwa (GM, Sifax Offdock)
I wouldn't call for an outright scrap, because now the government is looking at establishing a shipping line and they are definitely going to need those calibre of highly trained personnel that are localised, if not, you will have to pay to get them and we don't have that kind of money at this period. So it is better that NIMASA keeps it going and let us have such quality personnel on ground. However, if the option of MAN Oron is also there for cadets to choose, it would be a good idea because we would save some foreign currency; that is if Oron has the facility, the question is, does Oron have the facility? If not, it is better we take them abroad where they have the facilities.
Engr. Emmanuel Ilori (Publicity Secretary, NISA)
As you are aware, government has made us to know that funds are not available as we want it to, when it is very hard to pay staff salaries and other infrastructures are still lacking, we need to re-jig our priorities in the light of the present economic situation, scrapping NSDP would be a smart idea. We need to look at MAN Oron and make sure we make it perform its functions efficiently, the situation where they turn out cadets without anywhere for them to go to is not acceptable, so the quality and quantity of cadets coming out of Oron would be part of the reform that would take place so that it would perform what it ought to do. A lot of funds have been sunk into NSDP, but why can't we look at existing universities in Nigeria that have capacity to support the development of our maritime industry, there are many established institutions in the country today with access to the water and from land, these will attract experts to come and work there, we need to look at the sustainability of what the NSDP is producing and make sure it is ready to provide the manpower we want, we need to be true to ourselves.
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