By Steve Agbota
A former President of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) and Publisher of Shipping Position Daily, Mr. Sesan Onilemo has said that the menace of unemployment among seafarers is responsible for the rise in maritime-related crimes like insecurity, oil theft and robbery at sea across the country.
Onilemo, who was one of the panelists at the recent Maritime Security conference organised by MARAN, said the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA and the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron, have produced several seafarers without employment.
However, he expressed worries over the mass of unemployed youths in the country, which he described as willing tools for maritime insecurity and restiveness across the nation.
“There is a mass of unemployed youth that the society has foisted on us, an idle hand is a willing tool. I would like us to look at this from two angles, there are two categories of unemployed willing youths: the ones trained by NIMASA under its National Seafarers Development Programme who were trained, qualified with or without Certificate of Competency (CoC) but waiting to have something to do. They are there, they want to be active, they are the tools that are being used to foment trouble.
“There is another category – those boys and girls who are trained locally, some of them are trained at MAN Oron, but there are those that are trained even in Agege here who wear uniforms like that of the Navy, they are equipped and recruited into that illegal business that has turned out to be a source of threat to our maritime environment,” he explained.
He recalled that as a maritime journalist, he has interacted with several unemployed seafarers including those who ended up as boat operators for canoes and ferries for inland waterways transportation.
“If you go to Liverpool jetty in Apapa and I am sure the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) will bear me witness; some boys and girls who graduated from Oron, have turned out to be canoe boys, but they were not trained in Oron to be handling canoe and boats but there is no job for them elsewhere.
“These are the same boys who had five years of training but afterwards, there is no job. Take that guy to Niger-Delta, he is ready to do anything for as long as the money is available,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Maritime Security Providers Association of Nigeria (MASPAN) and Tantita Security Services Limited have indicated interest in training journalists on maritime security reporting.
While the Executive Director, Tantita Security Services, Capt. Warredi Enisuoh heeded the call to train journalists, his point of view was also rehashed by the MASPAN President, Mr. Emmanuel Maiguwa at the conference.