The Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh has said that the collaboration with the Nigerian Navy has played a key role in the achievements of his administration in terms of maritime security in Nigerian waters and the Gulf of Guinea.
He also described the oil rich Tongeji Island between Nigeria and Benin Republic as a low hanging fruit for the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, with an assurance that NIMASA would relate with the supervising Ministry for further actions, particularly as regards maritime tourism.
The closest village to the Tongeji Island in Nigeria is Badagry and it is about 55 minutes by water, while just five minutes from Porto Novo. The residents speak French and English and they do their daily shopping from Porto Novo.
Receiving the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC) Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Mustapha Hasssan, and a delegation of senior Naval officers in his office in Lagos on Tuesday, the NIMASA helmsman said that the Nigerian maritime security model is now being adopted in other countries.
According to Jamoh, the change in narratives about security in Nigerian waters from the era of over 26 piracy incidents and negative media exposure, to no single piracy incident in Nigerian waters for almost two years now, is a direct product of effective collaboration of the Maritime Administration (MARAD) with the Nigerian Navy, a relationship he hopes to deepen.
He said: “Collaboration with the Nigerian Navy is largely responsible for the confidence of stakeholders in the current management of the agency. I was in Brazil last week, the South Americans and even our neighbors like Ghana are eager to learn how we arrived at this MARAD-Navy collaboration yielding successes. Just imagine that the negative media exposure in 2019-2020 about prevalent piracy and criminal activities in Nigerian waters had continued, you can only imagine where Nigeria would have been by now. I am glad we sought and got collaboration with the Navy”.
Jamoh said that NIMASA is eager to ensure policy to ensure Nigerians enjoy benefits accruable from the blue economy. “The time has come for us to implement our crude to blue campaign since 2021. Maritime stakeholders in Nigeria should be ready to repay President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCRF for creating the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry. If we must make headway in tourism and fishing, security is priority. We will make a case for the designation of marine protected areas, particularly for fishing and the Nigerian Navy definitely will play a major role,” the NIMASA DG said.
The constitution of an eight-man committee, with four each from the Navy and NIMASA, was also announced to serve as catalyst for ‘Shift from Crude to Blue’, now that Nigeria has a Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.
The FOC noted the need to sustain information sharing between NIMASA and the Nigerian Navy. He commended NIMASA management for the non-kinetic support to the Western Naval Command.
He also requested NIMASA to support ‘Operation Water Guard’ to combat smuggling around the Badagry channel.
The FOC West, who had the Commander Deep Blue, Commodore O. A. Akinbami on his entourage, noted that the Deep Blue assets are fully functional and requested for further deepening of information sharing between the Western Naval Command and the NIMASA C4i centre.
Admiral Hasssan also urged NIMASA to bring to the notice of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, the need for Nigeria to take possession of a border island, Tongeji,which lies between Nigeria and Benin Republic, for maritime tourism, in particular.
Jamoh described the oil rich island as a low hanging fruit for the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, with an assurance that the Agency will relate with the supervising Ministry for further actions, particularly as regards maritime tourism.
