• NASS Says NIMASA Requested for Budgetary Allocation
About six years after it was hurriedly cited within the expansive premises of the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) in Topo, Baadgry, Lagos state, the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, (MAN) Badagry is facing a challenge of being a stillborn.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) which was bankrolling the project has been told by the landlord (ASCON) to take the academy elsewhere.
• NASS Says NIMASA Requested for Budgetary Allocation
About six years after it was hurriedly cited within the expansive premises of the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) in Topo, Baadgry, Lagos state, the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, (MAN) Badagry is facing a challenge of being a stillborn.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) which was bankrolling the project has been told by the landlord (ASCON) to take the academy elsewhere.
Shipping Position Daily confirmed that already ASCON is making plans to take over the space it gave to NIMASA for the abandoned Badagry Academy in 2007 for a second maritime academy.
When our correspondent visited the Academy’s site last week, it cut the picture of a jungle within an academic environment. The few buildings that NIMASA hurriedly built are now sandwiched by tick forest, which is one of the reasons ASCON gave NIMASA quit notice from the premises.
Even though no official of ASCON was willing to talk, a security man told our correspondents that no one has been seen at the Academy’s site since it was abandoned.
The security man, who pleaded not to be quoted however confirmed that some officials were at the site last year, but added that since then, no one has come around. “The fact is that no one can say that there is a school there any more:, he stated.
But Shipping Position Daily confirmed last week also that the project has been submitted by NIMASA in its 2013 budget as one of the things it intended to spend money on.
“We appropriated for it last year but they (NIMASA) didn’t do anything there, they have come again this year, so it is captured under the 2013 budget and we only hope that they won’t give excuses again”, a member of the House of Representatives committee on marine affairs told our correspondent last week.
The committee member also confirmed that, the more than N1Billion that was appropriated for the Badagry Academy through NIMASA in 2012; he added that the money was not spent and that provision has again been made for the project in 2013.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that about N250Miillion was said to have been expended on the project as at 2007. The director general of NIMASA at that time; Dr Ade Dosunmu had told reporters at that time that the money was from the Education Trust Fund (ETF) which was directed to release =N=300Miilion by the then- President Olusegun Obasanjo
Only three buildings were constructed with the money, namely: the two newly -constructed blocks and one block of rooms that we gathered was given out by ASCON as part of its contributions to the expected take-off of the academy.
Contract for the building and what was called landscaping and sand filling was awarded to one MS Hymns Nigeria Limited of 38 Balogun Street, Lagos at an undisclosed amount.
Shipping Position Daily had then also traced the contractor to the address, but we discovered to our shock that the company is not known in the storey building. In fact, the building housed traders and a bank.
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