‘Nigeria needs over 40,000 seafarers’

Oluwakemi Dauda -

Operators in the maritime industry have praised President Goodluck Jonathan for unveiling a National Job Creation Scheme, with N50 billion as take-off grant. They urged him to inject part of the fund into the maritime industry.

The country, the operators said, needs over 40,000 seafarers to man vessels operating on Cabotage and urged the President to develop manpower and the nation’s capacity in the maritime industry.

The President, they said, must ensure that youths are trained to take up these jobs.

Speaking with The Nation at the weekend, Chief Executive Officer, Solas Venture, Mr Samuel Olabode, urged the Minister of Transport, Alhaji Yusuf Sulaiman and the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Abdul Salam Mohammed, to ensure that much of the job creation fund is injected into the maritime sector.

Olabode also pointed out that by injecting so much funds into the industry, it would help reposition the economy by building a strong transport sector, especially through the shipping industry based on its critical nature to national development.

But the country, he said, is inadvertently trading the future of millions of youths because virtually everything going on in the maritime industry is in the hands of foreigners.

Olabode also urged the Federal Government to show more seriousness about the shipping industry so that many jobless youths could be employed through the sector.

Based on inadequate training, Olabode said foreign seafafarers from other countries are working on the nation’s territorial waters and making over two billion dollar annually.

The solution to the problems facing the nation’s maritime sector, he said, are no longer within the reach of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). He urged the Federal Government to look beyond the agency in terms of manpower development.

He decried that in the last few years, the Federal Government has gone to sleep in terms of manpower development in the industry.

Olabode observed that up till today, the country transports its crude oil with foreign vessels, imports the refined products with foreign ships, stressing that the ships are also manned by foreigners from India, Malaysia and Philippines, which he said leaves little or nothing for millions of youths who are jobless.

He said during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, some bills were signed into law for the maritime sector, but regretted that the Acts have not positively affected the economy, operators and lives of the people.

The maritime sector, he said, started well but was not happy that the country could not boast of any national shipping line, which according to him was a minus to the successive governments.

"The country, started with well over 20 ships but has nothing to show as national fleet since 1961 it started the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL). A country like Malaysia, started with seven ships but now has many vessels," he said.

Speaking with The Nation in Lagos, a maritime lawyer, Mr Dolapo Alaka, said since the liquidation of the Nigerian National Shipping Line in 1995, the maritime industry has suffered a generational vacuum in the area of manpower training.

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