India, Philippine bar Seafarers from Gulf of Guinea over pirate attacks

The  Indian Directorate General of Shipping in Mumbai, issued a restriction on all seafarers who are Indian nationals, banning them from working in vessels in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea.

Also, figures from the International Maritime Bureau had shown that the number of attacks in the Gulf of Guinea region had doubled in 2018.

There has also been a marked increase towards kidnapping for ransom and armed robbery incidents.
However, speaking to newsmen on Monday, the President of NISA, Aminu Umar further disclosed that recent waves of kidnapping for ransom had necessitated the actions of the two countries.

According to him, the Nigerian government need to urgently engage the government of the two countries.

“Philippines still enforcing the warnings asking their personnel not to work in the Gulf of Guinea and over a month ago, Indian has done the same. So we are battling with Indians because they have said they don’t want any indian national to work on any vessel that is trading within the Gulf of Guinea because one or two months ago, there was kidnapping of some indian crews at offshore Bonny or Brass so based on that, they are of the opinion that none of their nationals should come to the Gulf of Guinea to work on ship”

Speaking further, Aminu said restricting seafarers from working in the Gulf of Guinea would stunt the growth of the crewing and manning segment of the maritime industry.

“The indian government has said no indian is allowed to come to the GoG and this was in addition to the Philippines,so unfortunately this is what we are facing and Nigerian government should embrace the maritime administration of these two countries and have a discussion with them on their fears because we need these people to transfer seafaring knowledge on Nigerians because if not, there is no way we can run vessels in Nigeria.

“They have the knowledge, capacity and training, but Nigeria don’t have it yet and that is why you see that government under the National Seafarers Development Program (NSDP) is sending Nigerians to Philippines and Indian for training and the other European nations are not ready to allow their citizens operate in the GoG.”
Though, Umar said the pirate attack is in the GoG has reduced, he however said the government should do more over constant sea-robbery on the nations waters.

The NISA boss said due to insecurity, the Shipowners lost 30 percent of their freight rate to provide security onboard vessels.

“We have to agree to some extent that there is a little bit of reduction in the attack in the GoG region however the attack more or less is localised between the area of Brass and Bonny and we expect NIMASA, our regulatory body, to engage the Navy to ensure patrol of the area particularly the local area where  attacks are happening consistently.

“Today, you cant imagine the kind of cost this issue of security is costing Nigeria shipping industry because we are paying a lot of money on war risk insurance. For instance, Lagos to calabar is considered under the war risk zone.
“We are considered as far dangerous than Syria. We have to engage private security for escort and more than 30 percent of our freight is going to security and so many unfortunate cost we are carrying.”