Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has said that the country’s waterways are now safe
The agency gave the assessment at the ministerial briefing organized by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday.
It noted that no attack has been ochestrated by pirates on the sea shores since March this year.
Bashir Jamoh, Director General of the agency, said from the first quarter of this year to date, there has not been a single accident or incident on our territorial waters, particularly in terms of piracy attack and from last quarter of 2021 till date, which is over a year, no single attack has also been recorded.
He disclosed that this trend may have led to the cancellation of the stigma placed on Nigeria as the most dangerous water in the world.
He also noted that Nigeria has exited the list of countries with the worst form of pirate activities for the first time in March 2022.
According to him,the feat was achieved through the sustained effort of the Muhammadu Buhari led administration; leading to the overwhelming support Nigeria now receives form the International Maritime Organization.
“With this, Nigeria continues to receive support from the international community. What we did was to establish what we call Joint Industry Working Group; to open up our system to the international community and we told them that Nigeria is not the only country where there is insecurity or piracy but they always point on Nigeria only.
“Through that group, all stakeholders in our own industry now meet every month to discuss the progress of maritime insecurity in Nigeria and the entire Gulf of Guinea, under that agreement, we now signed an agreement between NIMASA, Nigerian Navy and the International Coordinating Centre at Younde, Cameroun, so that we can address issues that have to do with maritime security, so by extension, in the entire Gulf of Guinea, we have not had piracy attack since March,” he said.
Through the Deep Blue Project, there are ground and air patrols around Nigeria’s water ways to ensure safety of ships and lives on board, Jamoh said.
He noted that the Authority had to introduce the Deep Blue Project where they had to procure a number of various platforms.
He added that the President had earlier inaugurated the platform of the project, which has made Nigeria proud while many nations are coming to model us to learn how we manage our maritime security.
“We have two special mission vessels, which have the capacity of dynamic positioning. We can keep them at the high sea for a number of days, we also have three special mission helicopters, 16 armoured vehicles specifically meant for creeks.They have special features and can enter into the creeks and search for criminals. We also have two special mission aircrafts with a 24/7 special cameras which they use to film any place or environment and sends the signals immediately,” he explained.
He added that in order to ensure the safety of the waterways, NIMASA has embarked on the removal of wrecks, maritime litters and has entered into collaboration with the Nigeria Metrological Agency (NIMET).
He stated that the agency had to introduce the concept of marine litter and plastic action plan, through which wastes are discarded like empty water bottles and sachets of water which are harmful to aquatic lives.
“We sent the plan to the international Maritime Organization, they approved and we are now implementing it. The second thing is, we now try to improve on the marine environment management in order to ensure that the environment is safer. Any oil company found wanting will be forced to pay for such damages. We also collaborate with NIMET to have weather forecast for our own maritime domain in order to ensure safety of navigation in our waters,” he added.
He also revealed that NIMASA has so far enjoyed infrastructural support from Japan and Korea Republic, whereby, Japan assisted the agency with $ 2.7 million for the building of ships while Korea donated a war ship to boost the capacity of the agency in fighting pirates.
