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…Experts urge tech-driven maritime security
By Steve Agbota
Foreign trawlers allegedly engaged in illegal fishing in Nigeria’s coastal waters have reportedly opened fire on local fishermen along the Akassa coastline in Bayelsa State.
A source who disclosed the incident to Daily Sun said there were no security personnel on the waterways to intervene as the trawlers carried out their activities and left unchallenged.
Joe Amechi, a fisherman from the Akassa community, described the unprovoked attack on local fishermen operating along the continental shelf and shallow waters of the Atlantic Ocean as deeply troubling.
He called on the federal and the Bayelsa State governments to intervene on behalf of the people before there is a breakdown of law and order.
He said several people have reported ugly encounters with the fishing trawlers to the security agencies but no action has been taken.
He lamented that continental shelf-shallow waters are becoming unsafe for locals to do their business now that the foreign trawlers are carrying weapons despite fishing illegally.
Reports indicate that foreign vessels, particularly from India and China, are increasingly entering Nigeria’s waters with trawlers, fishing without restriction.
Experts who spoke with Daily Sun described the barbaric act by a foreign trawler as an illegal and punishable offence and blamed the government, through its agencies, for not investing in the technologies that can monitor the illegal activities of foreigners on the nation’s coastal waters.
Speaking with Daily Sun, an expert and lecturer at the Maritime University, Charles Okerefe, said the act is clearly illegal.
“These are some of the things we’ve been clamouring for over time. You know, the streamlined duty in our security system in our waters. And you begin to wonder what the Nigerian Navy is doing, even the Marine Police and all of that are doing. So, this is why those who are calling for the Coast Guard will continue to raise their voices because people are saying that our security personnel on the waters are very lax,” he said.
In other words, he said their focus is different from actually policing the nation’s waterways, and it is unfortunate.
According to him, those foreign trawlers coming to fish in the nation’s waters ought to be arrested, detained and have their vessels seized, and the appropriate sanctions and punishments meted out to the illegal operators.
“But what do we have? Did you hear of anyone being arrested? So, how is it possible that for territorial waters as huge as those of our own in Nigeria, there are no security personnel to quickly respond to such attacks by foreigners? It speaks volumes about how porous our security architecture is on our waterways.
“And I think it will be a wake-up call also for the government to do something about it. Because, one, their activities are illegal, number one. And two, to have the effrontery to come and shoot at locals who are doing their normal business is even more illegal, which has to be arrested by the force of our own security system on the waterways,” he said.
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Also speaking with Daily Sun, Gbenga Leke Oyewole, a seasoned maritime security expert and former Senior Special Assistant on Maritime Services to ex-President Goodluck, said it is an absurdity of the highest order for a foreign trawler to come within the nation’s territorial waters to shoot at the citizens of this country.
Oyewole, who spoke angrily about the incident, said that the act of the foreign trawlers was most likely illegal and an absurdity of the highest order.
“And do you blame them? I blame it on our surveillance system. I blame it on our poor monitoring of the coast. I blame it on people who would not do the needful at the right time. And I also blame it on most of the maritime agencies.
“Because, to start with, there is what is called notice to mariners. If any foreign vessel is coming to Nigeria, it ought to have announced its intention months ahead, weeks ahead, and daily when it’s very, very close. Did anybody receive such an alert notification from that vessel? And if somebody received it, what was the advice to that vessel?
“If nobody received it, what is the name of that vessel today, and who is trailing it, who is tracking it? It belongs to which country? What have we done to notify the country that has the flag? Or anybody can just come, kill our citizens, or even kidnap and go away, in addition to taking our natural resources free of charge.
Because a foreign trawler in the nation’s coast automatically means that maybe it’s fishing there, saying immediately that kind of incident happens, a combination of the Air Force and the Navy can ensure that that vessel does not escape,” he pointed out.
He said while the Navy is going on the sea, the Air Force can go and track it down and ensure that it doesn’t go further because if it moves further, they can shoot it.
According to him, they can shoot at it depending on when the Navy will go there and effect the arrest.
“The fact that they are bearing weapons on our territorial waters. Who allowed them? All these things speak to territorial integrity and national security. And it’s never too far away.
“They can also ensure that the vessel is tracked wherever it goes and to whichever country it belongs. Our tracking system, I mean, the modern technologies would not allow such an incident to go free of charge or unaccounted for.
He said the economic implication is that as long as foreign trawlers come to fish in the nation’s waters without monitoring what they do, the nation will continue to lose income from its natural resources embedded in its waters.
“Some of the foreign trawlers come with unacceptable net sizes that would take both baby fish and big fish and everything. So people come in to scoop natural resources from us at no cost to them and without any monitoring of any form. It’s not acceptable.
“Doesn’t it mean that the Navy has not seen that somebody is out there, and how far does their equipment go? It is unacceptable for anybody to say now with the modern technology and with the cheapness of these technologies that you do not see 200 nautical miles when a private one can even see anywhere in the world,” he added.
He lamented that these are very annoying things that need to be corrected, adding that people in positions of authority must be able to address this.
“I prayed the guy didn’t die. I want to believe that the Navy would never allow this to go unchallenged. And the effrontery of these folks is to the point that you will find out that that particular vessel, if they know the name, will still be in our waters to be fishing. They fish and package it there and sell it there. They don’t report to Nigeria. They take everything and go away. We’re not making money. We are making losses, and we are also incurring national insecurity.”
