Last week, a media report on a Greek website, disclosed that five Greek sailors have been abducted after their ship was attacked by pirates in Nigeria.

The pirates reportedly took hostage of the captain and two sailors from the five Greeks who belong to the crew of the supply tanker Stelios K, which is sailing under the Togolese flag, according to the Ministry of Shipping and Island Policy. According to the report by greekcitytimes. com, two other crew members were able to pilot the ship to a safe port in Lagos.

This came as the International Maritime Bureau (IMB’s) latest global piracy report details 132 attacks in the first nine months of 2020, up from 119 incidents in the same period last year. Of the 85 seafarers kidnapped from their vessels and held for ransom, 80 were taken in the Gulf of Guinea – in 14 attacks reported off Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Ghana.

During the review period, seafarers reported 134 cases of assault, injury and threats, including 85 crewmembers being kidnapped and 31 held hostage onboard their ships. A total of 112 vessels were boarded and six were fired upon, while 12 reported attempted attacks. Two fishing vessels were hijacked, both in the Gulf of Guinea.

In bid to halt piracy, criminality in Nigeria’s territorial waters and the annual loss of about $2.3 billion to maritime crime, the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) have taken delivery of two Special Mission Vessels (SMV), an effort they believe will put an end to the menace.

The vessel, DB Lagos and DB Abuja are equipped with sophisticated intelligence gathering capability for timely detection and response to illegal activities in the Nigerian maritime domain.

The launch of the federal government’s Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure, or Deep Blue Project, the agency said, would drastically reduce piracy and other crimes within Nigeria’s maritime domain and the Gulf of Guinea once fully operational.

The Deep Blue Project command, control, computer communication, and information (C4i) centre commenced operations on a 24- hour basis in August 2019 at the NIMASA base in Kirikiri, Lagos.

The number of piracy attacks on merchant vessels has rose in West Africa in 2019. In the fourth quarter of 2019, 64 seafarers were kidnapped in six different incidents, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

Many of the pirate groups are believed to operate out of Nigeria. Also, in this year, two pirate attacks have occurred, fuelling speculations that the federal government was losing the battle to end criminality in Nigeria’s territorial waters.

Speaking during the arrival of the vessel, the Chief of Naval Staff, Ibok Ekwe Ibas decried the impact of piracy on the nation’s economy adding that the two SMVs will aid in the effort to stamp out piracy.

“Piracy is an act inimical to the growth of the Nigerian maritime sector and we are prepared, more than ever before, to give it all it takes to end this nefarious act, ” said Ibas, who was represented by the Chief Security Officer, Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral M. M. Bashir.

He stated that the officers who would be in charge of the vessels will be given adequate training under the Deep Blue Project so that the special features of the vessels can be adequately utilised for the purpose of combating maritime illegalities.

Also speaking, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside said pirates and other criminals on the country’s maritime domain up to the Gulf of Guinea, would soon meet their waterloo, with the arrival and installation of the critical assets under the Deep Blue Project.

With approximately 95 per cent of global kidnappings reported from within Gulf of Guinea waters by Nigerian pirates, IMB warns that pirate gangs in the area are “well organized and targeting all vessel types over a wide range”. The furthest attack from shore also involved the most crew kidnapped from a single vessel in 2020.

On 17 July 2020, eight pirates armed with machine guns boarded a product tanker underway around 196 nautical miles southwest of Bayelsa, Nigeria. They held all 19 crewmembers hostage, stole ship’s documents and valuable items, and escaped with 13 kidnapped crew.

The tanker was left drifting with limited and unqualified navigational and engine crew onboard. A nearby merchant vessel later helped the tanker to sail to a safe port. Regional Authorities were notified and the 13 kidnapped crewmembers were released safely one month later. A more recent example was on September 8, 2020, when armed pirates attacked a refrigerated cargo ship underway around 33nm south-southwest of Lagos, Nigeria.

Two crewmembers were kidnapped, but the rest of the crew managed to retreat into the citadel – one of the industry’s recommended best practices endorsed by IMB. A Nigerian naval team was dispatched, who boarded, conducted a search, and then escorted the ship to a safe anchorage for investigations

The IMB piracy report includes a special thanks to the Nigerian Authorities, particularly the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA who “continue to provide timely information, actions and valuable cooperation between Agencies”.

The prevalence of reported armed robbery, piracy and kidnapping cases comes despite various efforts to tackle these scourges both within Nigeria and on a regional West African level. Nigeria have become very notorious for safe shipping due to the activities of pirates in recent years.

Some reports even suggest that the West African nation has taken over from the Horn of Africa (particularly Somalia) in terms of the activities of pirates.

The Nigerian government has committed to a range of measures to try and wrest back control of Nigeria’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone within the Gulf of Guinea.

In early 2019, a new security programme called ‘Deep Blue Project’ was initiated where the government removed the previous secure anchorage arrangement and the Nigerian Navy is now responsible for maintaining safety and security in these waters.

In June 2019, a new act to tackle piracy received assent by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Suppression of Piracy and other Maritime Offences Act 2019 (SPOMO). The new act was hailed as a success of initiatives such as the Yaoundé Code of Conduct with Nigeria becoming the first nation in the region to ratify a law to specifically combat piracy.

The purpose of SPOMO is to prevent and curb piracy, armed robbery and other unlawful acts against a ship.

The act has widespread application whereby it applies to any person on board a ship or aircraft navigating in, on or above the territorial and internal waters of Nigeria or on above international waters.

The act has been lauded for its definition of piracy that is in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 and the inclusion of specific maritime offences and unlawful acts at sea, which include armed robbery at sea and acts other than piracy committed within Nigerian waters.

However, the act has been criticised for being too standalone in that the act does not complement existing domestic laws on related issues such as money laundering and corruption.

Whilst the act grants powers to seize vessels or aircraft used for maritime crimes, there is some uncertainty as who may be considered the relevant authority to carry out such actions.

The effectiveness of the new act was recently tested when in August 2020, the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt convicted three of the nine accused of hijacking a passenger/ro-ro ship off the Equatorial Guinea coast in March.

This was the first conviction under SPOMO with the judge ordering each of the convicted parties to pay quite significant fines. It remains to be seen whether such measures introduced by the Nigerian government will be enough to deter would-be pirates.

It has been argued that Nigeria must go beyond the current measures and address the sociological and environmental factors that drive piracy.

Industry action Notwithstanding the continued maritime security threat, the West Africa region remains an important trading area for international shipping. Industry bodies have a key role to play in helping local governments tackle issues such as corruption that is one of the root causes of piracy. (Sunday Telegraph)

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