By Uzor Odigbo
The Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh has called on the international maritime business community to recognise the improvement of security in Nigerian waters and remove the war risk insurance premium charged on cargoes bound for Nigeria.
Jamoh, who made the appeal during his keynote address at the third seminar of the Atlantic Centre, held at the Ministry of National Defence in Lisbon, Portugal on Tuesday, October 19, 2021 stated that the three quarters of consistent decline on piracy reported by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) cannot be considered a fluke.
The NIMASA boss also appealed to Nigeria’s friends to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), to return the country to the membership of the Category C in the forthcoming IMO Council Elections in the next few weeks.
“We ask for your vote and count on your continued confidence for Nigeria to work in partnership with other nation states in the Gulf of Guinea to continue keeping our corridor of the Atlantic Ocean a safe passage for seafarers, their vessels and the vital supplies they transport for our common sustenance”.
According to Jamoh, Nigeria realises the importance of security on its seas and oceans to the international trade, economic progress, and well-being of the country and has taken a pragmatic approach to security within its sphere of The Atlantic Ocean.
He explained further: “In 2018, Nigeria executed a contract with a firm for an integrated national maritime surveillance and security infrastructure, i.e. the Deep Blue project as a robust tool to combat piracy, armed robbery, and other maritime crimes within Nigeria’s territorial waters and by extension the Gulf of Guinea (GoG).
In a press release obtained by TheNiche stated that the Deep Blue Project consists of sea, air, and land assets including a Command, Control, Computer, Communication, and Information Centre (C4i). The deployment of these assets was flagged off by President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, on the 10th of June, 2021 with a goodwill message from the IMO Secretary-General, Mr. Kitack Lim.
“To further bolster Nigeria’s effort in fighting crimes at sea, the government signed into law the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences Act, (SPOMO) 2019.
This piece of legislation gave effect in Nigeria to the provisions of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982 on piracy and the International Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Navigation (SUA), 1998 and its protocol. Since the law came into effect, convictions of at least 20 pirates have been secured under the Act with offenders currently serving various jail terms.
“At the regional level, following the United Nations Security Council resolutions of 2011 and 2012 Calling on the countries in the ECOWAS, ECCAS, and the GoG to work together on a strategy to fight piracy, armed robbery, and other illegal activities at sea in the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria joined other heads of States and governments to sign the Yaoundé Declaration on the 25th of June 2013 to collaborate in the fight against piracy and other crimes in their Atlantic oceans.
This decoration known as the ‘Yaoundé declaration’ led to the establishment of the Inter-regional Coordination Centre (ICC Yaoundé)
“Further to this, Nigeria together with the ICC Yaoundé is engaged with the major international shipping industry and commodities groups (INTERTANKO, INTERCARGO, ICS, OCIMF, BIMCO) to develop a framework known as the Gulf of Guinea, Maritime Collaboration Forum on Shared Awareness and Deconfliction i.e. GoG-MCF/SHADE.
“The framework is a multilateral initiative involving industry stakeholders and member countries in West and Central Africa and the Gulf of Guinea on Information sharing and incident reporting, Cooperation at Sea, and Air De-confliction. The G7++ FOGG is another multinational collaboration with regional countries on Maritime Security in the Gulf of Guinea.
“Whilst multilateral and multinational collaboration and cooperation are desirable for maintaining safety and security of not only the Atlantic but the entire oceans and seas of the planet Earth, however, such must be done within the complex web of international relations and diplomacy so as not to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of any country, big or small.
“Therefore, while appreciating the principle of ‘Mare Liberum’, a unilateral declaration by private entities to deploy warships to the waters contiguous to the Atlantic seas of West Africa is not amenable to good international relations. Likewise, the idea of Coordinated Maritime Presence (CMP) scheme, used by some countries to deploy frigates to the Atlantic oceans of West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea should be with the consent and agreement of the countries within the sub-continent in line with international laws and as a mark of respect for the dignity of their people and the sovereignty of their nations.
“At the continental level, Nigeria is a party to the Charter on Maritime Security and Safety and Development in Africa signed in September 2016 in Lomé, Togo (Lomé Charter). One of the objectives of the charter is to prevent and suppress national and transnational crime, including terrorism, piracy, armed robbery against ships, drug trafficking, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons, and all other kinds of trafficking through the sea and IUU fishing”.
He said that Nigeria’s effort in deploying huge resources to maintain maritime security is gradually crystallizing going by the latest encouraging January – September 2021 IMB report on Nigeria.
According to the NIMASA DG, “The water volume of the Atlantic is 310,410,900 cubic km and about 25% of the global oceans.
Therefore, no single country or body can adequately and consistently police or patrol to ensure security. Maintaining safety and security against piracy, armed robbery, Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing (IUU), trafficking of drugs and other psychotropic substances, etc., within the Atlantic’s massive body of water requires multiple approaches which include:
“Legal and regulatory enforcement; effective naval force for patrol and surveillance; technology for a maritime domain awareness infrastructure; intelligence and information sharing and transparency; and multinational and multilateral cooperation and collaboration”.
Jamoh hopes that the seminar will come up with recommendations and suggestions for a strengthened and collectively beneficial, multinational and multilateral strategic initiatives for stronger and effective communication, cooperation, collaboration and coordination in ensuring the security of the Atlantic which constitutes about 25% of the world oceans described as the “common heritage of mankind
