Determined to reduce the increasing pirate attacks that vessels undergo while on voyage to West African region considered as high risk area, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has declared Nigeria’s commitment to playing the leadership role in the fight against piracy and other maritime crimes in the Gulf of Guinea region.
Dakuku Peterside, director-general of NIMASA, made the declaration while delivering a keynote address at a symposium on Security in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) at the headquarters of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London.
According to him, the GoG countries were facing serious security challenges that had affected their economies severely and, therefore, needed global support and cooperation to tackle the problem.
Nigeria being the biggest economy and most populous country within the region, accounting for over 65 percent of cargo generated in the area, he said, the country occupies a vantage position to lead efforts to solve the maritime security challenges in the region.
“The location of the Gulf of Guinea held enormous advantages, as it holds a significant percentage of the world’s total oil and gas reserves as well as rich deposits of solid minerals, such as diamond, bitumen, copper, uranium, granite, quartz, lead, fluorite, and marble,” he disclosed.
He stated that the conference will afford the international community a platform to develop actionable strategies to put an end to piracy and other security threats in the African geological and maritime region.
Peterside, who doubles as the chairman of the Association of African Maritime Administrations (AAMA), noted that the Gulf of Guinea occupied a strategic location in international seaborne trade. “It is home to two regional economic blocs including the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), comprising 26 countries.
“It is, therefore, seen as a resource provider and critical contributor to national growth and prosperity of the nations lining its coasts and even those inward and with no shared boundaries, due to the access it grants to them,” he said.
“The region’s waterways were a key navigational route for international commerce, connecting the Far East to countries in the North and South of the Atlantic. It is the hub of extensive trans-Atlantic trade linking Africa with Europe and the Americas,” he said.
He highlighted the factors that made Nigeria strategic in the fight against maritime crimes in the GoG region to include being the country with the highest military contingent and with a huge deposit of oil and gas, which makes it a place of interest in international energy dynamics.
Other factors include the geo-strategic location of Nigeria, and the country’s big deltas, which are the largest in the world, with thousands of creeks.
While acknowledging that maritime insecurity had economic, social and environmental implications for the region, he told the international community that Nigeria was leaving no stones unturned in the attempt to overcome the challenges.
“It was this determination that led to the decision to approach the menace through a total spectrum of maritime strategy. The strategy involves law enforcement, regional cooperation, response capability building, and enhanced maritime domain awareness for all organs of government involved in maritime security.
The NIMASA boss however believed that with the new initiatives, kidnapping and other violent crimes in the GoG region could become history in a matter of months.
Highlighting the importance of regional and international cooperation in the fight against maritime crime, Peterside stated that countries in the region have no option but to work together to arrest the situation.
To find tailored short and long-term solutions to strengthen regional and international collaborations in the Gulf of Guinea, he said, Nigeria will be hosting a Global Maritime Security Conference (GMSC), which comes up in the country’s capital, Abuja, from October 7 to 9.
The summit is themed “Maritime Security and Global Trade Facilitation,” as part of Nigeria’s commitment, along with its partners, to stamping out piracy in the region.
“Implementation of an integrated national surveillance and waterways protection solution with command and control infrastructure in the Agency was part of the government’s deep blue contract to enhance security in the Gulf of Guinea,” he disclosed.
Peterside said it was Nigeria’s interventions that led to the establishment of the ECOWAS Integrated Maritime Security Strategy (EIMS) and Inter-Regional Coordination Centre (ICC) in Yaoundé. He also disclosed that Nigeria played a leading role in the establishment of the African Integrated Maritime Security (AIMS).
He however called for more support in the fight against piracy and maritime crimes.
NIMASA is a government agency responsible for ensuring safety and security on the country’s waterways, among other mandates as enshrined in the NIMASA Act, 2007.
At the operational level, NIMASA, through collaboration with the Nigerian Navy in 2012-2013, established “Operation Prosperity,” a security taskforce, among others, which had helped to reduce criminal activities in the region.
Also, the agency is determined to establish a legal framework to fight maritime crimes through an anti-piracy bill. The bill, when signed into law, will bring to bear appropriate sanctions on offenders and deter perpetrators of maritime crimes.
Amaka Anagor-Ewuzie
