By Oyeniyi Iwakun
Nigeria’s failure to get elected into the category “C” Council of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in the recently concluded polls seems to have dominated talks in the maritime industry. Industry stakeholders and commentators have explored so many mediums including the media to express disappointment at Nigeria’s abysmal performance despite huge resources expended in pursuit of the dream. It was further ignited recently at the Shipowners Association Of Nigeria (SOAN), 2017 workshop and dinner in Lagos when the president, Engr. Greg Ogbeifun held Nigerian Maritime Administration And Safety Agency (NIMASA) management and Federal Ministry of Transportation responsible. In a swift response, the Minster of Transportation, Rt. Hon Rotimi Ameachi informed the public of the rationale behind the poor performance even as the NIMASA Director General, Dr. Dakuku Peterside in a sideline at the G7+ friends of Gulf of Guinea meeting in Lagos last week gave more detailed explanation and defense on what transpired at the IMO.
The SOAN president attributed the failure to lack of foresight and gross incompetence on the part of NIMASA leadership even as he described the election outcome as a “hard blow on our psyche as a maritime nation” and that the world has told Nigeria that its maritime industry is sick and almost moribund and that it is not a maritime nation that can be relied on for maritime trade, security, and infrastructure or for seafarers and other maritime professionals.
Engr. Ogbeifun blamed NIMASA leadership for lacking the required professional skills and qualities to successfully interact and compete favourably among the comity of maritime nations.
He said “we have ignorantly believed that to win election into the IMO council is by political lobbying, flaunting our economic influence by reason of our vast natural resources which we have failed to appropriately harness to impact the lives and fortunes of our vast population”.
The SOAN president said Nigeria lost out because stakeholders failure to acknowledge that the IMO and the rest of the world are aware of the decay in our maritime domain as result of the leadership and management failure of our maritime administration which includes the inability to midwife the emergence of the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) after twenty two (22) years of demise despite the obvious fact that ninety-two percent (92%) of import/export cargo in and out of Nigeria is via seaborne.
According to him, our maritime domain which has remained a high risk and most unsafe for seaborne trade and activities vis: piracy, hostage taking, kidnapping and poor navigational aids as evident in the 2016 International Maritime Berau’s (IMB) annual piracy report that Nigeria recorded second highest number of actual and attempted pirates attacks after Indonesia with a total 36 attacks, constituting 18% out of the 191 pirates attacks all around the world is a major factor.
He said recommendations of the committee set up by the Transport Minister for the revamping and restructuring of our flag administration to make it more attractive for international patronage didn’t see the light of implementation and that NIMASA has been spending huge sum of money in sending young Nigerians for incomplete seafarers training abroad at the detriment of the development of our Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron.
“Our flag administration is extremely weak such that the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) which owns a large fleet trading worldwide is unable to register their ships in the Nigerian flag and boost our tonnage.
Engr. Ogbeifun accused NIMASA of hostility to stakeholders coupled with problematic and unfavorable tax laws and policies which has hindered the growth of the maritime industry. “Foreign vessels which do not meet requirement of our Cabotage Act continue to dominate our waters at the dectriment of Nigerian registered vessels simply because of compromise by persons in public positions who should otherwise be protecting our Cabotage trade.
He lamented that vessel owners contribute two-percent 2% of their contract values to the Cabotage Vessels Finance Fund (CVFF), a fund that has accumulated several hundred of millions of dollars since its inception over ten (10) years ago and meant to finance and grow the cabotage fleet but has been seized by Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety (NIMASA) without allowing it to be used for its purpose.
“The shipowners are still contributing money to that fund up till now. Our tonnage is going down, seafarers are going out of job, the businesses are collapsing and you are sitting on the money and in the midst of that, you are still collecting money in a regime where our shipping business is dying.
“In some countries where integrity prevails, when you go for competition after training and you fail at the finals, the coach either resigns or sacked, NIMASA management have failed, and they should either resign or be sacked by the government. A lot has been wrong in our maritime industry. In the past most of the past leaderships had been removed due to fraud but it is now time to do so due to incompetence” he said
However, in response Ameachi said, Nigeria lost the IMO Council elections because Nigeria stopped being in the executive since 2011 “and by the time we started lobbying, we are like new persons to IMO. Our position was a good attempt but wait until 2019 when we will go back to contest for the other position.”
On CVFF, he said most of the shipowners only want to take advantage of the fund since they know that the systems is confronted with monitoring and retrieving challenge. He then posited that there is need for proper structure to forestall mistakes of releasing it to wrong hands, citing his previous experience at the aviation industry where beneficiaries of over N300billion given to owners and businessmen disappeared with it.
“If you teach me how to spend that money, we will spend it but to give you that kind of money that we gave to aviation and the money disappeared? No! I will not, no matter what you do. The law says recommendation from NIMASA to Minister and once the minister approves, you take your money but how do I hold you back? You must create jobs by giving you the money. I was telling someone that why do they want loan from FG at 12% interest but wouldn’t take that of Bank of Industry for 8%? It is because they know BOI would monitor them while they can abscond with that of FG. We are thinking of empowering the BOI to spend the money on behalf of the government because it is well structured” Ameachi said
The minister lambasted the shipowners for doing nothing when the former NIMASA DG, Patrick Apobolokemi misappropriated and carted away the CVFF under his administration and also berated Dakuku for refusing to implement the report to reposition the agency of the ministerial committee after he had given his approval, said he is still not satisfied with the industry because he believed the industry is supposed to produce more money than it is.
The Executive secretary, Nigeria Shippers’ Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello took the same position with the minster on the IMO election loss; He said “Nigeria lost the election due to so many reasons but we shall get to that stage very soon”. Bello also called for calm and dialogue among stakeholders in the industry to resolve differences.
On his part, the NIMASA Director General, Dr Dakuku peterside explained that IMO election wasn’t lost because of NIMASA’s failure. While addressing journalists at the G7+ Friend of Gulf of Guinea in Lagos last week said there had been lots of misrepresentations by the media.
He said “a lot of uniformed persons keep giving commentaries that are simply laughable. Our original approach is to dismiss it and to ignore it but when you allow wrong information to dominate the space for a very long time; it begins to develop some lies.
Dakuku explained that all those who won the election in the category “C” were simply reelected and that Nigeria started late in its quest to be elected and that by rules of engagement, NIAMASA or the maritime administration is not supposed to directly engage international organizations but the ministry of foreign affairs.
“In the African country, there was no new person. Morroco, Egypt, Liberia, South Africa was simply reelected. The choice of who gets elected into the council is democratic process and peer comparative. We presented ourself and lost due to a few things we have not tidied up which has to do with administrative processes. I don’t want to come here to begin to talk about who did what” he said
The NIMASA boss also attributed the loss to Nigeria’s inability to fulfill some obligations as demanded by IMO. According to him, other countries were hosting IMO events on regular basis but Nigeria couldn’t because of financial constraints.
“Before, whenever Nigeria bids for election to IMO, we will go from country to country. This time we are just coming out of recession and we didn’t think it wise to send delegations from country to country, you know how much that would cost” he said
Dakuku said misconceptions and misrepresentation of facts about security and other related issues about the Nigeria Maritime domain is part of the rationale behind the loss even as he announced that Nigeria went for the election with only three (3) delegates and spent less than One hundred Million naira; an amount he said was very minimal compared to what some other countries that participated in the election expended.
“On the issue of Piracy, we cannot deny that it must have had impacts on the election. Our colleagues didn’t have enough information about what we are doing to tackle piracy and there was a general impression that Nigeria wasn’t doing enough to tackle the issue of piracy but by the time we put the information in a proper perspective, most of their home countries have given them instructions to vote in a particular direction. Again, Liberia is within the gulf of guinea and they were reelected into the council” he said
When quizzed by MMS Plus on the rationale behind the non-disbursement of CVFF, he said NIMASA doesn’t have the right of approval and that the transport minister has said he wouldn’t release it unless the guidelines are reviewed to ensure proper disbursement and monitoring even as he disclosed that the current amount in the CVFF account is only a little higher than One hundred million dollars as against the one hundred (100) billion naira insinuated.
Also in reaction to MMS Plus’s question, Dakuku said the SOAN president never called for his resignation or removal “I was there live and sitting beside him”
Dr. Dakuku explained that NIMASA had experienced remarkable improvements under his leadership which got the acknowledgment of the IMO and the international maritime communities even as he expressed optimism in Nigeria coming out victorious in future elections in the IMO council.
“We are the first country in Africa to subject ourselves to mandatory audit by the IMO and after the audit we were highly rated as performing very well in our ports, flags and coastal safe function.
“In the last one year, we have attracted more training than any other African country. I don’t think I want to reel out those statistics here about the things we are doing. NIMASA has sent over two thousand five hundred (2,500) seafarers abroad for training and one thousand four hundred (1,400) graduated at a time. we are sending two hundred (200) cadets to Egypt and eighty nine (89) to United Kingdom making the total of two hundred and eighty nine (289) by December or January next year to do their sea time” he said
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