Steve Agbota
In recent times, Nigerian maritime domain has been in the news for wrong reasons. Today, Nigeria is branded as haven for piracy and maritime crimes.
Before the other maritime nations across the world, Nigeria’s image is being battered as a result of piracy, and other crimes in its territorial waters and the Gulf of Guinea.
Now, investors are scared and people don’t want to invest in Nigerian maritime domain. Apparently, businesses that will ordinarily come calling at Nigerian ports are now calling at the neighbouring ports because of maritime insecurity.
According to Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), at a recent top management meeting, a statistical report was read out by one of the top management members that about 88 piracy attacks were reported on the Nigeria’s waters between 2017 and 2018.
Stakeholders lamented that most of the crimes and piracy attacks are not carried out in the nation waterways as being reported in some quarters. But just because Nigeria is one of the nations in the Gulf of Guinea, anything that happen within there, the blame will be transferred to Nigeria.
For instance, there are over 20 countries within the Gulf of Guinea and anything can happen within that environment. The international communities now considered Nigeria being the biggest country around the Gulf and the country that unleashes most of the crimes that happen there.
Ironically, in a situation where something happens in Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana or part of other countries, because they are all part of Gulf of Guinea as Nigeria, it would be reported that it happened around Nigeria’s waters and they continue to send wrong signals to international communities.
Going by the consistent threat of insecurity in the maritime economy, save Nigeria is paying world premium in terms of insurance and it also the highest payee of freight all over the world.
For instance, when one checks the cost in freight from America to Ghana, which is almost the same distance to Nigeria, one will find out that Nigeria pays more than Ghana. And at the end of paying the premium, the cost is transfered to the consumers.
As part of efforts to rid the Nigerian maritime domain of criminalities, NIMASA got the presidential approval as well as Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval to initiate and commence the Integrated Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure, otherwise known as the Deep Blue Project.
The Deep Blue Project enables NIMASA to undertake surveillance training for officers from the Nigeria Army, Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Air Force, Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services (DSS), and NIMASA, on the C4I Integrated Surveillance Systems operation.
The system will aid the coordinated view of the entire Nigerian maritime domain. The project provides both land and air based surveillance capabilities with command and control centres located across the country for data gathering and information sharing. Already, about 300 officers of the Nigeria Army were trained on the Basic Infantry Course, all under the Deep Blue Project.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony for participants of the C4I Intelligence System Operator Course for the Deep Blue Project recently, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, said the Deep Blue Project would drastically reduce criminalities in the Gulf of Guinea.
Dakuku explained that the project was multifaceted and involved the training of selected officers from the various strata of the security services and NIMASA as well as acquisition of assets to combat piracy and maritime crime.
He stated: “The Deep Blue Project is a multipronged approach towards tackling insecurity in our territorial waters and the entire Gulf of Guinea.
What we are doing is fulfilling the training aspect of the project and this will also be complemented by acquisition of assets, such as fast intervention vessels, surveillance aircraft, and other facilities, including a command and control centre for data collection and information sharing that will aid our goals of targeted enforcement.
“The Deep Blue Project is geared towards building a formidable integrated surveillance and security architecture that will comprehensively combat piracy, maritime crime and criminalities in Nigeria’s waterways up to the Gulf of Guinea.”
Dakuku said that the agency, in collaboration with the National Assembly, was taking steps to ensure that the Anti-piracy Bill is passed soon. He said NIMASA was involved in both regional and domestic collaborations to ensure that maritime crimes in the country’s waterways are reduced to the barest minimum, if not completely eliminated.
“As a country, we are not going to fold our hands, and watch a few criminals among us to destroy our economy. In view of that, we initiated holistic program to tackle maritime insecurity.
The deep blue project has various components, which include the acquisition of assets, training of personnel, and, most importantly, investing in intelligence.
“A lot of things have been put in place to achieve this project. These particular graduants have undergone four weeks training for the surveillance and intelligence unit of the deep blue project. And today, with the quality of persons we have trained, we are sure it is going to be a reality, it will be one of the best government programmes to tackle insecurity in the Golf of Guinea,” he added.