The Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture (MENA) Division of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has expressed disapproval at the establishment of a dockyard and maritime university in Delta State by the Nigerian Maritime And safety Agency (NIMASA) without any consultation with marine engineers.
The Chairman of MENA division, Engr. Dominic Onabajo made this disclosure during his welcome address at the 4th annual conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the association with the Theme: Strategy For Growth In The Nigerian Maritime Industry, in Lagos, yesterday.
According to him, “NIMASA would have gained a lot, if it has sought our professional input before embarking on the construction of a university and dockyard in Delta State to avoid running into serious problems that could lead to the waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Anabajo went on to lament that MENA division of the NSE has a lot of capable and seasoned engineers who can excel in the area of ship yard development but are currently being underutilized, adding that MENA professors can handle all aspects of marine education in maritime higher institutions as well as the marine engineering department in universities but the agency had failed to carry MENA along on its maritime man power development projects.
Similarly, the President NSE, Engr. Ademola Isaac Olorunfemi said “Our members are adequately equipped to respond to components of growth and development demands of our nation but we are still experiencing challenges of development as we are confronted daily with issues of poverty, insufficient infrastructure and so on. So, we in the engineering profession must continually lend our ingenuity as veteran leaders to surmount some of the challenges through our divisions and branches, enter into collaborations and alliances with government at all levels with the purpose of improving the living standards of our people.”
He urged MENA to key into the programs of the government which will begin to unfold in due course and to this end the communiqué from the conference will be sent to NSE so that it can be forwarded to the Federal Government.
He further stated that the FG is seeking aggressive sources of growing the Nigerian economy and marine engineers have been identified as partners in progress by the Secretary General of the Federation who is also an engineer.
