The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has released the three-year scorecard of the agency under the Dr. Bashir Jamoh (OFR) led management
The management, which came on board on the 3rd of March, 2020 while the nation was in a lockdown following the global lockdown caused by the Corona virus pandemic did not allow the lockdown to deter its set goals as it swung into action while adhering to all the Covid 19 protocols in the agency and the maritime industry.
Three years down the line, the agency can boast of numerous achievements of the Jamoh led management such as:
Human Capital Development especially under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme NSDP, drastic reduction in piracy attacks not only within the Nigeria territory waters but also in the Gulf of Guinea which has led Nigeria ti exit from the piracy red list of the International Maritime Bureau IMB.
According to the release by the Assistant Director, Public Relations of the agency, Edward Osagie, NIMASA has also listed shipping development, harnessing the blue economy and the ongoing preparations for the disbursement of the 20-year old Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund CVFF. This fund you could recall had been stuffed in the various banks. But Jamoh’s administrations recently secured the approval by President Muhammadu Buhari for the disbursement of the
Fund.
The Jamoh’s three years in office also achieved the signing into law of the Suppression of Piracy and other Maritime Offences SPOMO Act 2019 by President Buhari, the launch of the Deep Blue Project, which led to a significant reduction in piracy and kidnappings, arrest and successful prosecution of criminals under the SPOMO Act.
The agency under Jamoh also provided leadership of regional maritime collaboration forum, which helped to tackle insecurity and Nigeria’s removal from IMB’s piracy red list, which was in reaction to the return of safety and security in the country’s maritime domain.
According to the agency, the aim of the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure also called the Deep Blue Project is to establish a sustainable architecture for improved maritime safety and security through increased monitoring and compliance enforcement within Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone EEZ. This is with a view to effectively tackling the challenges of piracy and other maritime crimes in the Gulf of Guinea region.
Under the project, some security assets were acquired, which are classified into three categories comprisingmarine, land and air assetswith over 254personnel drawn from military and paramilitary organisations.
The marine assets include two special mission vessels, 17 units of fast intervention boats while the air assets comprise three special mission helicopters, two special mission aircrafts and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) even as the land assets include 17 units of armored vehicles. Other facilities include thecommand, control, computer, communication and intelligence (C4i) centre, training facilities, which comprise shooting range, C4i training centre etc., among others.
As part of efforts to sustain the level of security already achieved, the agency said: “We have simulators, among other state of the art facilities, and the funding by NIMASA has been unhindered. This is in addition to other private maritime institutions, the private like Charkins, they are now also coming up with a lot of accreditation of diplomas and other short-term certificates that we are doing it locally, saving foreign exchange that we are having.
“In addition to this initiative, the agency created skill acquisition centres across six geopolitical zones. For the South-West we have Lagos, in the South-East we have Anambra, for South-South we have Bayelsa, for North-East, we have Maiduguri, Borno state; for North-West we have Kaduna State for North Central we have Kwara.
“So all these skill acquisition centers have the capacity of training younger Nigerians on different aspects of professionalism under that. This is to help trim the number of this criminality in our own territorial waters. Records therefore show that from third quarter of 2021 until date, we have never recorded one single attack on our own territorial water.”
The agency also recorded huge milestones under the NSDP within the last three years. For instance, as at October 31, 2021, a total of 2,041 students were enrolled under the programme from its inception in 2009. These comprise 656 officer graduates while a total of 625 have so far graduated with Certificate of Competency COC, which is issued after successful completion of the one-year mandatory onboard training while 31 have graduated in Naval Architecture.
Others include 446 cadets undergoing sea time training, 93 cadets, who have completed sea time training and now undergoing COC while 351 cadets have been assigned to different maritime training institutions and about to board vessels for sea time training and another five cadets, who are currently undertaking shore-based training.
Others include 360 cadets that have completed sea time training and are awaiting COC, 10 deceased cadets and 120 withdrawn cadets, which made it a total of 2,041 cadets from inception. Further details show that as at the end of 2021, there were 200 NSDP cadets studying in Greece, India and Egypt while in 2022, there were 235 cadets in Greece and India even as a total of 800 cadets trained under the programme had already gainfully employed on board ocean going vessels across the world.
NIMASA under Jamoh has also sustained its efforts at maintaining cleaner oceans by reinforcing its waste to wealth initiative under which its marshals go round the seashores to remove debris while sustaining its inter-agency collaboration under which it ceded five per cent of its revenue for the funding of Maritime Academy of Nigeria MAN, Oron, Akwa Ibom State, among several other lofty achievements
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