The security of lives, property, and investments, to a large extent, determines how attractive a nation is to foreign and local investors alike. But in Nigeria, promises of security, like virtually everything else ends at that; promises. In this case, the nation’s waterways are among the deadliest and unsafe for maritime operations even earning the country a top spot in terms of insecurity in global maritime sector reviews and reports.
For a heavily import-dependent country, it is befuddling that security on the coastal waters is taken with levity. Even if the country’s aspirations to become an active exporter were to become a reality, the shipments leaving the country still need to sail off safely.
Despite reports of piracy and other forms of violent attacks on Nigeria’s territorial waters, boosting the capacity of the Nigerian Navy to match these challenges has often yielded a demonstration of oratory skills. What the country needs, however, is a demonstration of tactical and operational skills on the crime-prone territorial waters.
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M.A. Johnson, a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, UK noted in a BusinessDay article on globalisation and piracy, that a report from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) recently stated that within nine months of the year 2017, one hundred and twenty-one piracy incidents were reported globally, out of which ninety-two vessels were boarded, five hijacked, eleven attempted attacks and thirteen vessels fired upon. The report showed that Nigeria remains risky, having a total of twenty reports against all vessel types, sixteen of which occurred off the coast of Brass, Bonny, and Bayelsa. The report further affirms that guns were used in eighteen of the incidents and vessels were underway in seventeen out of twenty reports.
Regrettably, thirty-nine out of the forty-nine crew members kidnapped globally occurred off Nigerian waters in seven separate incidents, according to the IMB report.
Sola Amire, president, Nigerian Trawler Owners Association (NITOA) had also described Nigeria’s coastal waters as deadly, with fishing vessels prone to attacks where personnel have been killed on several occasions.
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The situation is indeed very frightening, particularly for people who facilitate commerce between Nigeria and the rest of the world and doing this through the ocean.
Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for agriculture, once suggested that the coastal security situation may not be able to get an immediate resolution.
In his words; “Nigeria’s coastline is the biggest within the gulf of guinea and we certainly do not have the capacity as it were to be able to combat the illegal and unregistered fishing activities by those who are coming from other parts of the world to come and take our fish away.
“Liberia has been able to reduce illegal and unregistered fishing by 82 per cent, and I believe that if Liberia could do that, Nigeria has no choice than to also do the same. In furtherance of our quest to see how we can reduce that, the president has approved for us to get two vessels for the Nigerian Navy and our fisheries officers to be able to do that. We need much more than that but we have to start from somewhere so we are doing something about it.
“It is a long way to go and it is the work of Nigerian Navy to ensure our maritime waters are safe and prevent them from encroachment by vessels that have no license to operate on our territorial waters. But that is itself challenging as our territorial waters are over 800 kilometres, so it is very difficult for the Nigerian Navy to police the entire stretch. Which is why we are collaborating with other sister countries to see how to get that done.”
While he may have spoken more from the perspective of fishing and the security challenges on the waters, the situation is the same for oil vessels and those freighting other commodities in and out of Nigeria.
Nigeria, with over 180 million people, and described as the largest economy not only in the region but the continent should be setting the pace for smaller neighbouring countries. Our maritime security should not be left in the hands of neighbouring countries when we have a naval force.
We want the federal government to ensure that the Nigerian Navy is not patrolling streets and highways when their attention is desperately needed on the perilous waters. Announcements (and promises as it were) to get new vessels for the Nigerian Navy should be made a reality, and officers should be monitored to ensure they are policing Nigeria’s territorial waters, and not giving criminal elements occasional free passes.
