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By Steve Agbota
Security experts and maritime stakeholders have said that the Chinese Navy’s visit to Nigeria will strengthen the fight against piracy and other maritime crimes in the nation’s waters and the Gulf of Guinea and enhance economic outreach.
The Chinese Navy had arrived Nigeria on a five-day visit on July 2, with three warships of China’s People’s Liberation Army fleet bringing about 700 sailors.
However, the Nigerian Navy and Chinese Embassy said the five-day visit signified growing relations between Beijing and Africa, with the goal of tackling maritime security threats and maintaining stability in the Gulf of Guinea.
Maritime stakeholders and security experts described the visit as a welcome development and an opportunity for Nigeria and Africa to address security issues.
Speaking with Daily Sun, a security expert in Niger Delta, Ovie Marvin, said the visit was a rare one, which would afford Nigerian Navy opportunity to discuss various security issues on the nation’s waters and the Gulf of Guinea with their Chinese counterpart.
“In the past, we have been faced with the challenges of piracy in the nation’s waters until our government rose and took up the fight by establishing piracy law and providing security architectures know as Deep Blue project piloted by NIMASA.
For more than a year now, we hardly heard issue of piracy or any attack on our waters even the Gulf of Guinea. This could be one of the reasons the Chinese Navy visit Nigeria to strengthen the fight against maritime crimes,” he said.
Meanwhile, the President of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM), Captain Tajudeen Alao, said it is a welcome development because over years, Nigeria has not seen Chinese warships coming into the nation’s waters.
According to him, Nigeria had French, British and others coming into the nation’s waters because of the nation’s commonwealth ties.
“Maybe their coming in could be because Nigeria is building some warships in China. Most of our new commercial ships were built in China because it is a cheapest place now. So it is a welcome development,” he said.
“You see what we called flag shore in the Navy is that you have a Naval ship going on flag shore all over the world. We used to do it in Nigeria. Nigerian Navy also used to go round to build relationship, it is not war but to build relationship between countries. Even though in the last past 10 years or more, Nigeria has been intending to go to the east building relationship with the Asian countries like China, Korea, Indian and others.
“It is part of the diplomatic tie. So I don’t think they are coming here to provide security for us as being insinuated in some qaurters. I do not think so when you have a good relationship with a country, it enhances you economic outreach as well,” he added.
However, some experts and stakeholders declined to speak on the Chinese Navy’s visit to Nigeria when they were contacted by Daily Sun. The visit was said to have come amid speculation that Beijing could be seeking to establish a naval base in the Gulf of Guinea while the visit was described in some quarters a move by China to convince Nigeria to support that desire.
Recall that the Chinese vessels were received by officials of the Western Naval Command led by Flag Officer Commanding(FOC) Rear Admiral Joseph Akpan.
According to the FOC, for the Nigerian Navy and for the navy worldwide, we have three roles, military, diplomatic and policing roles.
“The Navy is a tool that can be used for the diplomatic roles and this is what you are seeing today by the visit of the ship to Nigeria.
They are exercising their diplomatic prowess and when you visit with a big ship like this, it tells you something about that country and internationally.
“China is not the only nation that has visited us with ships like this, we keep having visits from European countries and other countries in the world all over and I think the reason is that they found Nigeria to be a strategic partner.This has been helping us to fight crimes especially in the Gulf of Guinea so we always welcome such visits as this,” he said.
