Steve Agbota [email protected] 08033302331
Nigeria’s seafaring industry has huge economic potential to generate trillion annually to government coffers if repositioned. But unfortunately, the industry is yet to blossom but remains untapped so far.
Despite the huge resources Nigeria spent training Nigerian Seafarers abroad, it is losing an estimated $7 billion in revenue to untapped seafaring export in the shipping industry; due to its inability to identify seafaring business as a niche market.
With the nation’s large population of about 180 million, investigation revealed that no certified or well trained seafarer deemed fit for export while other nations with lesser population have identified seafaring business as their niche market or area of comparative advantage.
The Phillipines for instance takes Seafaring as its niche market and their nationals constitute about 20 per cent of world Seafarers. The letter remits a minimum of $7 billion to their nation’s economy on annual basis. This equals the same amount Nigeria is said to be losing annually.
Daily Sun learnt that in 2009, the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) initiated National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) for the training of cadets abroad, and between 2011 and January 2015, the Agency had spent over N20 billion to train 2,500 seafarers under the NSDP.
Since the training has not contributed to any national development, recently, Federal Government stopped the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) for the training of cadets abroad as many considered it as a waste of resources.
This was even as the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi said he hasn’t approved the training of cadets out of the country since he assumed office in 2015. According to him, approving training for cadets out of the country contributed to the stunted growth recorded by Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron in recent years.
He bemoaned that the reason MAN Oron is not progressing is because Nigeria was sending people overseas for training after which they come back to join the unemployment queue.
“Nigeria should have the same type of institution we are sending our people to abroad and in Nigeria, if we stop people from being trained overseas, they will ensure that this place (MAN, Oron) is improved upon,” he said.
The minister who said that the seafaring academy in Egypt and Ghana were built at about the same time Nigeria institute was built and lamented that Nigeria Maritime Academy is lagging behind its contemporaries in Africa.
He said: “I heard MAN Oron was established almost the same time with the school in Egypt and we are not near them not even Ghana. What we lack is organisation and leadership.”
Speaking with Daily Sun via telephone interview on why Nigeria has not been able to produce Seafarers for export market, Managing Director of Kamany Marine Services Limited, Charles Okorefe said: “The first question one should ask is, has Nigerian seafarers satisfied their local cabotage package? You can’t export what you don’t have. Assuming Nigeria does not have crude oil, would it be exporting crude oil? The answer is no!
“For Nigeria to tap into this export business and be in the same league with Philippines, there is need to start building our squad of seafarers to satisfy first and foremost our local demands in the cabotage industry first.”
He said the reason why Nigeria cannot export seafarers was as result of lack of professional training they receive and they don’t have enough seatime. Adding that Nigeria does not have training vessels for the trainers to train the Saefarers in the country.
He further explained that Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron and other allied institutions do not have what it takes to allow the so called seafarers to attain the certificate of competency such as the STCW-952010.
He added: “You must first of all think about your own front. Philippines made about $7 billion as return by its seafarers annually because they have identified that area as a niche market and developed it to the extent that there is no foreign going vessel you will not see Phillipino seafarers onboard.
“So Nigeria still have a very long way to go because first and foremost, you must train your seafarers for them to be satisfied with certificate of competency identified by International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that is the starting point. The Nigerian cadets don’t have enough seatime because we don’t have trading vessels and training vessels. Where would they get the seatime from? Is a big question.”
In addition, he said the 20 billion spent on sending seafarers abroad would have made economic sense to purchase vessels, with which the Nigerian Seafarers will get seatime training and experience.
He stated that, “so that culture of waste is a major problem too because they were not thinking of the interest of the seafarers but their pockets, otherwise, one cannot spent that kind of money and say there is no result, that is the point, they should have channel that money into purchase of vessels to allow the young ones to get their seatime training.”