Achievements Of NIMASA In The Past Three Years Under The Dr. Bashir Jamoh Led Administration

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) was established by an Act of Parliament (The NIMASA Act 2007) with two cardinal objectives, namely;

I. To Regulate and Promote Maritime Safety, Security, Marine Pollution and Maritime Labour.

II. To promote the development of Indigenous Commercial Shipping in International and Coastal Shipping Trade

The Agency derives its mandate from four Acts of the National Assembly. These are NIMASA Act, 2007, Cabotage Act, 2003, Merchant Shipping Act, 2007 and SPOMO Act, 2019.
VISION
To be the leading maritime administration in Africa advancing Nigeria’s global maritime goals

MISSION

To achieve and sustain safe, secure shipping, cleaner oceans and enhanced maritime capacity in line with global best practices towards Nigeria’s economic development
OUR CORE VALUES
C – COMMITMENT
A – ACCOUNTABILITY
P – PROFESSIONALISIM
I – INTEGRITY
T – TEAM Work E – EXCELLENCE
L – LEADERSHIP
D – DISCIPLINE

MARITIME SAFETY

The Federal Executive Council, at the end of the last quarter of 2021, approved the wreck removals from Badagry axis up to the Tincan Island project has gone very far.

Again, in the first quarter of 2022, the Federal Executive Council approved the removal of the entire wrecks also in the other zones of Nigeria, comprising Western zone with headquarters in Lagos, Eastern zone headquarters in Port Harcourt and then central Zone headquarters in Warri. All these projects have achieved major milestones.

We engaged the Nigerian Navy Naval Dockyard in Lagos to repair our operational vessels, Millennia 1 and Millennium 2. Today both vessels and five others are almost ready for deployment for enforcement purposes. This will also enhance our search and rescue operation, port and flag state administration amongst others.

In other to attend to the emergencies that may occur after a Search and Rescue Operations, the Agency has built two brand new Search and Base clinic of international standard at Azare Crescent, Apapa and Kirikiri. We are hopeful to commission it soon. The hospital is not for NIMASA or Nigeria, but original Regional States, NIMASA in charge of nine countries in terms of Search and Rescue. The hospital is of high international standard, we hope to treat all calibers of patients locally, and internationally, with the state of arts equipment the facility will possess, when completed.
In the area our Flag and Port State Administration, at the inception of the administration, there was no single vessel for enforcement. Today, we have built seven brand new bullet proofs boats and we expect them to have completed the building. They are being built in Spain, and we are hoping that before the end of March, we will receive and commission the vessel.

As soon as the vessels are commissioned, there will be enhanced enforcement performance; and we plan to divide the use of the vessels; not only in Lagos, but also to other zones of the Agency. All these will cater for the issue of safety.

MARITIME SECURITY
Before 2019, we do not have law, separate law that tried this offenders and criminals that we arrest those involved in piracy and kidnapping.

Therefore, we try to get this formal act Suppression of Piracy and other Maritime Related Offences (SPOMO) Act signed by Mr. President in June 2019. As of today we have secured convictions under this Act. This has also served as a deterrent to would be criminals.

To further deter these criminalities on the waterways and make our youths gainfully employed, the Agency engaged the Marine Litter Marshals Usually;
In the area of education, the Agency introduced the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP). The Nigerian NSDP development program is a capacity development programme.

Now in order to ensure that we do not forget our own training institution in Nigeria, we have improved our interface with the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron. The Agency’s statutory funding of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in Oron has been on point since 2020.

We have Simulators, among other state of the art facilities, and the funding by NIMASA has been unhindered. This is in addition to other private maritime institutions, the private like Charkins, they are now also coming up with a lot of accreditation of diplomas and other short-term certificates that we are doing it locally, saving foreign exchange that we are having.
In addition to this initiative, the Agency created skill acquisition centres across six geopolitical zones. For the South-West we have Lagos, in the South-East we have Anambra, for South-South we have Bayelsa, for North-East, we have Maiduguri, Borno state; for North-West we have Kaduna State for North Central we have Kwara.
So all this skill acquisition centers have the capacity of training younger Nigerians on different aspects of professionalism under that. This is to help trim the number of this criminality in our own territorial waters. Records therefore shows that from third quarter of 2021 until date, we have never recorded one single attack in our own territorial water.

AIM OF THE DEEP BLUE PROJECT

The aim of the project is to establish a sustainable architecture for improved maritime safety and security through increased monitoring and compliance enforcement within Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), with a view to effectively tackling the challenges of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

THE DEEP BLUE PROJECT ASSETS BREAKDOWN

Classified into 3 (three) with over 254 personnel drawn from Military and paramilitary organizations. These are; Marine, Land and Air Assets.
Marine Assets
Special Mission Vessels – 2 (DB Abuja and DB Lagos)
Fast Intervention Boats – 17
Air Assets
Special Mission Helicopters 3
Special Mission Aircrafts 2
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
Land Assets
Armored Vehicles – 17
Facilities – Command, Control, Computer, Communication and Intelligence (C4i) Centre, Training Facilities (Shooting Range, C4i Training Centre etc.). Training; various training for all personnel in the deep blue project on the assets and facilities.

OUR PERFORMANCE TRIPOD
MARITIME SECURITY S1:
Security of the Maritime Domain is very critical to the day-to-day operation of the sector. Security helps to boost investors’ confidence; hence, the following key accomplishments under the current dispensation.

1.Signing into law of the SPOMO Act by Mr. President
2.The launch of the Deep Blue Project
3.Significant Reduction in Piracy and Kidnappings
4.Arrests and Successful Prosecution of Criminals
5.Leadership of Regional Maritime Collaboration Forum to tackle Insecurity
6.Nigeria’s Removal from IMB’s Red List

OUR PERFORMANCE TRIPOD
MARITIME SAFETY S2:

The Agency observed that shipping is critical to
global trade, yet it is the most vulnerable in terms
of safety. This explains the reason the IMO
(International Maritime Organization) adopted
the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention to
ensure the safety of those involved.

Consequently, empowered by enabling
legislations, NIMASA takes this as a critical aspect
of its job to ensure safety of ships and those on
board, through proper enforcement of maritime
safety conventions.

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