To harness Nigeria’s maritime potential, the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has called for stakeholders’ active participation to grow the country’s blue economy.
He made this known at the harmonised NIMASA Stakeholders Interactive Forum in Lagos, saying amount of littoral states in Nigeria and the length of the nation’s made the development of Nigeria blue economy a necessity for the country’s benefit.
He said the agency was on a mission of changing the landscape of the nation’s maritime domain by putting a policy framework in place to allow maritime business to thrive.
He said: “Maritime provides a veritable opportunity for us to grow our economy. We will ensure we play our role by providing necessary policies for industry players to reap the benefits of participating in the sector to develop our blue economy for Nigeria’s benefit”.
He, however, charged industry stakeholders to collaborate and cooperate with the agency as it strived to create an enabling environment to operate:
“The industry belongs to stakeholders, we must synergize to get the benefits embedded in maritime, we must work together all the time because it is our priority that those who do business in the industry flourish in order to develop our blue economy.
“That is why we are in the process of acquiring more surveillance aircrafts and additional fast intervention vessels as enshrined in the new maritime security architecture approved by the Federal Executive Council to ensure that our maritime domain remains safe for doing business.”
Chairman of the agency, Major General Jonathan India Garba (retd), said tthe board would continue to support the current management by giving necessary approvals that would reform the Nigerian maritime sector for economic benefit.
Chairman House Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration, Mr. Muhammed Umar Bago, said that the legislative arm of government would support NIMASA and stakeholders by providing laws that would advance the country’s maritime sector.
Chairman of Nigerian Ports Consultative Council, Otunba Kunle Folarin, commended NIMASA’s drive towards building capacity for the sector.