Steve Agbota

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has lamented Nigeria’s rising war risk insurance premium charged by vessels coming into the country due to false reportage of attacks on nation’s territorial waters.

The Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, who raise this concern said that pirate attacks on Nigerian waters were being blown out of proportion by the international community due to unverified reports on maritime crime within the Gulf of Guinea, which misrepresent the nations maritime security to the outside world.

Peterside who was represented by the Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Bashir Yusuf Jamoh, disclosed this during a courtesy visit by the Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN), lamented that Nigeria is paying war risk surcharge over lumpsum data on maritime crime in the country. 

Related News

According to him, while attacks in Gulf of Guinea  are erroneously referred to as attacks on Nigeria territorial waters, sea robberies are mistakenly referred to as pirate attacks thereby giving Nigeria a bad image in the international communities.

He enjoined journalists to be more professional in gathering information around maritime environments and to embrace investigative reporting in their method of reportage as it would go a long way to benefit the maritime industry and the country at large especially now that International Maritime Organization (IMO) Council election is around the corner. Peterside said  Nigeria cannot afford to lose the chance of getting reelected into the IMO Council, this time round.

He explained: “Recently, we were in a top management meeting, and one of the top management members read out a report that says about 88 piracy attacks have occurred within our waters. It is important that we get our facts right before reporting sensitive issues like that. Nigeria is a member of the Gulf of Guinea. There are over 20 countries in the Gulf of Guinea. Anytime any maritime crime happens within the Gulf of Guinea, it is viewed as if it happened within Nigeria’s waters because we are the biggest country within the Gulf of Guinea.