Nigeria hasn’t benefited from shipping sector - Indigenous Shipowners

Abiola Seun

The Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) has charged the federal government to show more interest in the shipping sector in other to benefit from the enormous potentials inherent in it.

Speaking yesterday at a press conference to announce plans to host the Lagos International Shipping Expo (LISE), the President of SOAN, Dr. Mcgeorge Onyung said Nigeria has not benefited from shipping.

The expo which is tagged “The Ocean Blue Economy and National Econony”, would be held between the 27th and 28th November 2019.

According to him, there are enormous potentials presently waiting to be tapped and harnessed only if the government pay more attention to it.
Onyung further stated that for over 15 years of the enactment of the Cabotage act, the act has not worked for indigenous Shipowners.

He said, “Nigeria has a vast ocean and 840km nautical miles of coastline and nearly 10,000km of inland waters. If you don’t have ships, you are not there. Norwegians use to have their water frozen for 8 months in a year and I can challenge you to check that of every five ships that ply the oceans of the world one of them is owned by a Norwegian that means they are everywhere even though their waters are frozen.”
“In our own, (Nigeria), we started well because everyone that went to London in the 40s went with ship and that is why we say shipping is an old trade but Nigeria hasn’t benefited a lot and has not built, shown capacity and it is time for us to wake up.
“In the past 15 years, cabotage has not worked.

We especially this executive of SOAN and the group of Shipowners with other stakeholders want maritime to work.
I want to say that shipowners, has sought knowledge and go into the archive to know more and understand the system.

“We need to build our capacity and the way to go is that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has done well by putting this committee on waiver cessation in place and i believe the committee is working tirelessly to ensure that the maritime industry works, even though the capacity is not their we have the opportunity to expand the capacity and marine notices are already coming out about the kind of ships that will be banned by next year, for instance fishing trawlers.”

Onyung further stated that though Nigeria has capacity to build smaller craft like dredgers, tug boats, it has to expand its capacity to building other bigger vessels.
“My ship was bought in China and if you go and see where they build this ships, they are like Bar-Beach and they put them in the water. In Nigeria, there is capacity for small boats, tug boats and dredger because dredgers are not difficult to put together also, Singapore doesn’t have any steel rolling mills but they put together ships so we can do it if we develop the right capacity.
Also speaking , the Chairman, Technical Committee, Engr Lucky Akhiwu urged the government to partner the association in putting the nation’s shipping sector on global map.
Though, he applauded the government plan to ban some set of vessels through the waiver cessation plans, he however called for articulation of policies in a way that the shipowners can support.

“If you are banning a vessel for five years and you don’t have the capacity right now so that means we have to work triple time to achieve that objective and that means government must work their policies, thought and back it with actions.
“Shipowners’ association are ready to help harmonise their plans but if their thoughts and policies are watery, there is no one individual that will put his money.”
“They must make the right policies and if we say 2015 or 2020 this is what will happen, it must happen. It is either government want to prioritise what they want to do because Nigeria must be empowered and when the policies are right, investors will come,” he assured.