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By Steve Agbota
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), on Wednesday, said that it has surpassed the 35 per cent affirmative action of the United Nations standard for women.
This was disclosed by the Executive Secretary of the Council, Mr. Emmanuel Jime, at the 2023 edition of the International Women’s Day (IWD), organised by the council in conjunction with the Women in Logistics and Transport (WILAT), held at the council headquarters.
Jime, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Human Resources, NSC, Ada Okam, NSC, said that the council was gender friendly as reflected in the number of women representation in the top cadre of management.
“Precisely, women represent 45 per cent in the high-profile cadre as well as occupying other equally juicy positions in similar level of representation.
“In line with embracing equity, the council has already trained over 65 per cent of its female staff locally and abroad in different capacity building programmes to properly position them in the organisation,” he said.
Also speaking, the President, Chartered Institute of Transport and Logistics (CILT), Mrs Mfon Usoro, said men are more in the maritime industry because the industry is a seagoing business.
Usoro, a former director general of the Nigerian Marítime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), said women must create and harness opportunities inhenrent in the industry in other to meet up.with men operating in the sector, saying that there are technology innovation in maritime that requires intelligence than physical strength.
“I am now very pleased about the theme of the IWD which is equity through technology and in technology we do not require physical strength because that is what men use because the job is strenuous and stressful.
“Technology is brain so we need to create opportunities for ourselves, encourage our girls to be good in science and mathematics subjects because that is where you start if you want to be good in using technology. We will always have the rest of us who are arts inclined but those that have flair for sciences and mathematics, let’s us encourage them.”
“A lot of digitalisation is now in shipping, even being on the bridge, everything is digitalised. This is about encouraging ourselves and not being afraid that the opportunities is not there. We are talking about creating the opportunities for ourselves and we should not wait for people to create the opportunity for us.
Usoro, however, stated that women should compete and break barriers in other to get to the top, because several persons are competing for fewer positions. “Men also are hustling to get there and up there, there are few seats. So they are hustling and they would not remember to keep opportunities for us women. We should create the opportunity and make them realise that we are hardworking, smart and intelligent and ready to contribute and not look for excuses to say because I am a woman, I will not work after 5.00 p.m.Who goes to the top and stops work at 5.00 p.m, no body.
This is because there are other women who are ambitious, so you just need to rearrange yourself,do what the men do to get to the top,” she said.
Speaking earlier, the chairperson of WILAT, Khadijah Sheidu-Shabi, rued poor representation of women in the technical section of the maritime industry, even as she is seeking more percentage of women especially in the technical aspect in the shipping industry.
She stated that women needed to be encouraged on their involvement in the maritime sector, saying women’s participation in the technical section of the nation’s maritime sector is discouraging.
Though, she acknowledged that the women in shipping are more represented in the management and administrative cadre than the technical section.
“What has actually happened is that the male dominate the technical session of the shipping sector. We don’t have enough of women in the sector like marine engineers, seafarers. We don’t have a lot of them in the vessel as well. We want Pilots and we want women to skip boats.
“We don’t have enough women in that technical section, so we need to encourage our young women to take part in this aspect. Over 15years ago the administrative percentage was about 7 percent but today, it’s about 20 percent in administration,” she stated.
