By Amaechi Okwara
Asaba
Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ibas, yesterday decried the complicity of security agencies in maritime crimes.
He stated this in Asaba, the Delta state capital, at the Nigerian Navy retreat 2015 with theme: “Nigerian Navy and Emerging Maritime Security challenges.”
He said the Nigerian Navy was significantly impacted wise by vices such as the “proliferation of illegal refineries, unregulated entry of ships into the maritime domain, ungoverned maritime space, and legal hurdles in enforcement prosecutor powers, weak level of institutional collaborations and possible resurgence of militancy in maritime environment.”
Delta state Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, who declared the ceremony open, challenged the Navy to ensure effective maritime security.
Okowa decried high rate of piracy, crude oil theft, illegal bunkering, pipeline vandalism and other criminal activities in the nation’s maritime domain.
He said: “It is an incontrovertible fact that maritime security and national prosperity are inextricably linked together; therefore, at this critical juncture in the nation’s history, I expect the Nigerian Navy to treat the issue of maritime security as a national emergency because today, the country is hanging precariously on a financial cliff owing to dwindling receipts to the Federation Account occasioned by the falling oil prices.
“Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has continued to prosper; rampant crude oil theft, illegal bunkering and pipeline vandalism are still flourishing and Nigeria loses between 40, 000 and 100, 000 barrels (of crude oil) a day due to theft while illegal fishing (poaching) and pollution that threatens the local food supply is also thriving in addition to the fact that drug and human trafficking are enjoying a boom in the West African coastlines.”
Minister of Defence, Muhammad Mansur Dan-Ali, whose address was read by General Gabriel Olonisakin, said Nigeria was contending with different security challenges and that the Nigerian Navy had the responsibility to synergise strategies to tackle the security challenges in the maritime domain.
