Owolabi Omotayo (Water Transporter)
Owolabi Omotayo (Water Transporter)
The government has a lot of work to do, the ship owners and the institutions also have a lot of work to do. These days we have illegal maritime institutions springing up, some don’t even have the facilities for practical training of the seafarers. Imagine a maritime academy without a vessel and all the navigational equipment at the institution and at sea, how can the cadets be employable by international vessel owners or indigenous ship owners; knowing that the institutions are not well-equipped. Secondly we are short of local vessel ownership and that is why many of our cadets pass out from the institutions and have no jobs.
Innocent Orok (Maritime Reporter)
For our seafarers to be employable, they must be up to international standards both in qualification and character, government must put the needed facilities at our maritime academies for the training of seafarers, these must be of world and IMO standard, government should also show the way by creating an enabling environment for indigenous ship owners to thrive, so that they can in turn help to train and employ some of our seafarers. It will be difficult to have our seafarers employed by other countries of the world if we are not employing them in our own shipping sector.
Chigozie Chikere (Rector, Emdee Shipping College)
In order for the seafarers to be employable, government should establish its own shipping line, or get its own vessel, the government should go back into re-establishing our shipping line and register new ships, by so doing, cadets and graduates from other maritime academies can have minimum access of becoming employed. The absence of a training vessel is the reason why most of our cadets go to Ghana because that is where they get everything they want, and once this has been given to them, they find it hard coming back into the country and this is a problem. In other for them to be employable they need to be trained on how to use a ship, I believe when they have the knowledge of what they are doing, it will make them employable.
Lucky Amiwero (Eyis Resources Ltd)
We must look at the application of laws so that we can know how to develop our indigenous capacity, when you go to America; their concepts in the maritime industry are all based on Cabotage and fleet expansion programmes, back home here, the truth of the matter is that government themselves are not ready to support our seafarers, because when you have a cargo without a ship to push them out and by so doing engaging the seafarers, and also when a country does not have national fleet, then there is a problem. It is not the question of good administrative training alone; every other aspect of the practical training must be implemented, if they are not, there is no way we can generate employment for the seafarers.
Simeon Nwonu (Image Maker, NAGAFF)
Seafarers are supposed to be professionals working hand-in- hand with the Nigerian navy and ship operators, but we discovered that what we experience in Nigerian differs from what is obtainable in other advanced countries of the world. In Nigeria, a seafarers is seen to be a thug or tout and they are regarded to be fake naval officers, how can we then make them employable? The government has to orientate them on courses that are in line with modern day technology, they have to be trained in such a way that they will be useful to themselves even after they have left school without necessarily depending on employment from the government. But the issue is that the kind of training that is being given to most of them in the institutions is not up to standard.
Comrade Peter Ojelatan (Water Transporter)
It is not that they are not qualified to work, but it’s because of the situation on ground, the government does not have any ship due to the liquidation of the National Line, and most of the indigenous and private ship owners today are not effective as expected. Nigerian seafarers are competent and qualified, but where is the ship to operate upon? If you look at some of the private operators, their vessels are out of class and it is because of the economy of the country today, government is not ready to buy ships, so they should encourage the indigenous operators and create a conducive atmosphere for them to operate, this is important because people will not want to bring their money and invest in a system when the institution has not provided appropriate environment for them to thrive.
Engr. Mathew Alalade (President, Merchant Navy)
What government can do to empower our seafarers and make them employable is for them to enter into an agreement on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis, so that vessels can be available for them to work with. I believe that with a national carrier in place the seafarers will be able to secure employment onboard the vessels; furthermore, if we have a national carrier in place we can also use it to train our cadets up to masters level so that the ageing master mariners we have today can get a good replacement.
Mathew Adele (Dockworker)
The proper regulation of ship owners by NIMASA goes a long way in assisting the seafarers to find happiness once more, most Nigerian seafarers do not have good working conditions with their employers, but with intervention of NIMASA as the government regulatory agency, things will change for the better for Nigerian seafarers.
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