Pirate Attacks Surge on Nigeria Waters despite NIMASA’s N70.2bn Security Contract

…stakeholders describe Contract as breach of national Security

Abiola Seun

Despite the signing of a bogus $198m (N70.2billion at a prevailing rate of N360/$) security contract with an Israeli firm by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Nigeria is still under constant pirate attacks.

The attacks which have become rampant in recent days have made stakeholders in the maritime industry to question the rationale behind the bogus contract to a foreign firm thereby breaching national security.

According to statistics in 2018, there were 48 actual and attempted piracy attacks in Nigeria, up from 33 in 2017. The waters off the Nigerian coast experienced the highest number of piracy attacks globally in 2018.

Investigation revealed that in the last three months of 2018, 41 kidnappings were recorded in Nigerian waters alone. On October 27, 2018, 11 crew were kidnapped from a container vessel 70 nautical miles off Bonny Island, Nigeria. Two days later, Nigerian pirates in a speedboat hijacked a tanker underway 100 nautical miles off Point Noire, Congo. Eight of the 18 crew were kidnapped.

Nigeria is the largest country with the largest population in the Gulf of Guinea and both population size and length of littoral zone associate with piracy.

But Nigeria also has extensive political violence, crime, and corruption, which also fuel contemporary maritime piracy, the IMB report stated.

Most piracy occur in two locations on Nigeria’s coastline according to an IMB map; one is just off the coast of Lagos, the other near the delta of the Niger River and the maritime safety agency has always been caught napping during every attack.

“Nigeria is not only problematic in terms of attacks at sea,” Dirk Siebels, a maritime security analyst, told The Globe Post. He explained that piracy in the country is “closely linked to the security situation on land and to the lack of effective law enforcement.”

In its first quarter 2018 report, IMB disclosed that its piracy reporting center recorded 66 incidents in the first quarter of 2018, up from the 43 recorded in the corresponding period in 2017, and 37 incidents in the first quarter of 2016.

According to the report, Nigeria alone recorded 22 incidents between January and March 2018. Of the 11 vessels fired upon worldwide, eight were off Nigeria.

The first six months of 2018 saw a significant rise in maritime crimes. Little wonder, the IMB, which last year, raised the alarm that attacks by sea bandits off the Coast of West Africa were on the increase in Nigeria, has labelled the Gulf of Guinea, where Nigeria is a key player ‘a hotspot’ for piracy.

The unabated piracy attacks in Nigeria’s waters further affirmed that the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) have failed woefully in their responsibilities of manning and ensuring safety and security of Nigeria’s waterways respectively.

Nigeria has however lost over N7trillion annually to crime in the maritime sector.

The Speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara who traced the revenue leakages to insecurity and unabated maritime crimes noted that several attacks have been reported off Nigeria’s coast that involved pirates stealing cargoes of crude oil and petroleum products.

Dogara, who decried the porous nature of the country’s territorial waters, urged the Nigerian Navy and all relevant agencies especially NIMASA to increase security at the water ways to curb piracy and other attacks that hamper the Nigeria’s economic activities.

The Speaker said: “It is even more worrisome to note that Nigeria is said to be losing about N7trillion annually in the maritime sector due to leakages in revenue generation and insecurity in the water ways.

“Between January and March 2016, several attacks were reported off Nigeria’s coast. This was said to involve pirates stealing cargoes of crude oil and petroleum products.

“The increasing attacks and violence in the Gulf of Guinea has given Nigeria and other countries in the sub-region very damaging and negative image in addition to an estimated monthly loss of $1.5 billion. The onus is on the Nigerian Navy, NIMASA to stem the tide and secure the nations territorial waters, in cooperation with other agencies of government.”

However, speaking on the attack, a maritime expert, Engineer Emmanuel Ilori spoke on the maritime contract, stating that it’s an exercise in futility.

According to him “there is armed robbery and sea robbery within our territorial waters but piracy did not take place within Nigerian territorial water, piracy only takes place within the international water.

“There might be sea robbery within the Nigerian territorial waters; it is the Nigeria responsibility to respond to armed robbery and sea robbery within Nigeria territorial waters.

He added that the current administration is addressing the issues because it is the responsibility of NIMASA and Nigerian Navy to secure the nation’s territorial waters.

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