EMEKA OKOROANYANWU
Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has said that Nigerian waters are now safer than they were before, adding that piracy and other maritime crimes have reduced drastically.
Dakuku said that efforts being put in place by the Federal Government to tackle maritime crimes were now yielding results adding that NIMASA would continue to up its game to ensure Nigerians benefit from the enormous potential in the sector.
The Director General was answering questions when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Marine Transportation in Abuja to defend the agency’s budget.
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“You are aware of all the measures we are putting in place to take the Nigerian maritime sector where it belongs and when you look at the multifaceted approach of the Federal Executive Council’s approved deep blue project which covers every aspect of maritime security, you will realise that a lot has been done to get us to this stage.”
The DG said the recent rating of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) stating that the Nigerian waters are now safer had further boosted investors’ confidence in the Nigerian maritime sector locally and globally. He noted that all these had been achieved through collaboration driven by NIMASA, working with other relevant agencies of government.
“Statistics do not lie and so when the IMB came up with the report of our waters being safer, we were not surprised because we know the level of work we have done with the support of the federal government to ensure that the Nigerian Maritime Sector becomes an haven for investors,” he stated.
The IMB 2019 first quarter reported stated that the Nigerian maritime domain recorded no vessel hijack in the period under review, first time since the first quarter of 1994 that Nigeria would have such record.
