Knocks, New Ideas Trail Nigeria’s Loss of IMO Category C Seat Election

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By Francis Ugwoke

The loss of Nigeria’s bid for the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Council Category C seat election dominated discussions among top maritime stakeholders who though are bitter about the outcome however offered new ideas on the way forward.

The stakeholders who aired their views through different social platforms expressed bitterness that Nigeria did not do enough
to address poor operational procedures as necessary to impress the world maritime body.

They pointed out that this was unfortunate since the IMO Audit Committee in its last exercise had identified areas of deficiency as far as the nation’s maritime industry is concerned.
One unidentified stakeholder simply said that what Nigerian maritime authorities fail to take into consideration is that to win any Category seat election in IMO , “it is not speeches but action”.
Another contributor identified as Rear Admiral EMG wrote, “Now we are crying about losing Cat-C seat at IMO when we have the following records:
1. We have zero search and rescue capabilities
2. We can’t secure our maritime domain for activities to be conducted securely and safely
3. We can’t train our seafarers internally – we have a maritime school but send them abroad with taxpayers money
5. We pollute our marine environment at the highest levels
6. When our officers and authorities board a ship, dollars will depart Captain pockets
7. Ship inspector demands money not to report NCs (non-compliance)
8. Our agencies are fighting themselves
9. We don’t have experience persons with practical maritime experience and certification as required in our critical government agencies. Where we have few, they are not allowed to take roles they should
10. We couldn’t even take advantage of the law (Cabotage) to build capacity – we build small canoes from others countries, bring foreign ships to shuttle our local cargoes.
11. Our Maritime administrator appoints Class societies to carry out their functions because they are not able to
13. The few they retain like ship registration is a huge mess. Try to register a ship in Nigeria, then you will understand the mess here
The *in-house rot* is much, and we are thinking we deserve a seat at IMO – *what a sense of entitlement?*
We should realise that is it not all about satisfying the IMO audits first, but Nigeria’s maritime interest.
We have an Agency we called specialize, but do everything like it is conventional from recruitment to the condition of service, to career development planning and execution.
“The Day the region elects Nigeria in Cat-C while this mess still exist will be the day I will begin to suspect that IMO is becoming corrupt”…Emmanuel Maiguwa”

In his contribution, Nigerian Ambassador to Democratic Republic of Congo, Engr. Omar Suleiman, Dokaji Adamawa, while expressing bitterness over the loss said he had after the meeting of MOWCA in Kinshasa in August this year, advised for a new approach to win the Category C election.

Suleiman who was also former MD of NPA said, “ We have been doing the same thing and expecting a different result which is not possible. New campaign, new alliances and new approach. Get people who know the industry to talk to people not only civil servants. I don’t know how the people on top of this industry know this industry. Elections are not won by the number of people you carry during the elections. Elections are over before IMO meeting”.
Suleiman also advocated that if Nigeria cares to win the Category C election, a Committee of professionals has to be set up as soon as possible, probably next month.
He wrote, “ For me, if we care by next month there should be a committee for next IMO elections comprising of professionals like Hassan Bello, Mrs Mfom Usoro, Otumba, Asu Beks, some serving and retired professionals, to review and come up with strategies for next election. And we start now”.

Agreeing that Nigeria has done well in some areas, particularly in addressing the issue of piracy, among others, Suleiman however observed, “but IMO OR UN are not voters they just INEC during the elections you know that”

In his view, the former Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Barr Hassan Bello, maintained that Nigeria did all her best to win the election in terms of meeting the requirement of the IMO audit committee.
Bello said, “We put up a gallant fight even before the elections Piracy is being challenged successfully. We have hard and soft infrastructure. We have the legal frame work – an Act of Parliament and even convictions. The numbers of attacks going down. Much commendations for NIMASA by IMO and the international community And the campaign headed by HMOS who used in born diplomatic savvy. Yet we fall short. There is more to it than meets the eye. I agree with Oga Omar Suleiman. We need to question that IMO policy Remember the UN? It was forced to change certain things ! We must commend NIMASA and FMOT pls”

The former DG of NIMASA, Mrs Mfom Usoro in her view said the task of “becoming a significant maritime nation should be adopted as a NATIONAL PRIORITY and pursued as a multi-sectoral project”.

Usoro who is the President of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport（CILT-NIG) said that performing some critical functions such as flag State functions, coastal state functions and port state functions goes beyond the Ministry of Transport and its agencies.

She said,” It should not be viewed as a NIMASA project. This is what we should advocate. Each Ministry and relevant agencies would have to key in and give a report of their undertakings towards making Nigeria a significant maritime nation”.

Former President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, Dr. Eugene Nweke in his view said there should be no direct blame to the management of NIMASA, adding that institutional administration was a collective task.
Nweke wrote “Honestly, no direct blame on the DG NIMASA per say but to say that, institutional administration is a collective tasks.
“The displeasure noted here is the unbecoming nature of the “Coming and going, this several seasons’ as captured by JP Clarks in his poem ABIKU.
“An institution is expected to approach its statutory and policy obligations in the order of priorities, if this is done working assiduously would not be relative.

“By priority, I mean to say that, when an institution attempt achieving a project or goal and fails , it is natural to go back to the drawing board, articulate lessons learnt from the outing, identify factors that led to its failure to achieving its targeted goals, proffer solutions to mitigate against it , reviews a second time attempt with a clear positive pointers to actualising the goal and galvanize required resources to get it done.

“I personally believe that, except we attempt same goal 10 times before we can get through it.

Mostly so that the tax payers money deployed in the several attempts , does not Increase nor add to BOT.

Please see my position on this as a Nigerian victimized by Institutional excesses, and not just as a stakeholder.

I still insist that responsible leadership delivery entails that the NIMASA DG owes Nigerians and stakeholders an apology”.