The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) says it will collaborate with relevant security agencies to stamp out piracy in the country’s territorial waters.

Dr Dakuku Peterside, the agency’s Director-General made the commitment in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.

“We are partnering with security agencies, precisely Nigerian Air Force, Navy to patrol our waterways and enhance surveillance on our waterways.

“In addition we are promoting and sponsoring an anti piracy bill before the National Assembly, where we think we deal with the key issues prosecution and other things that we have noticed seems to be a gap in prosecuting pirates.

“We have deployed Central Surveillance System and we have synchronised our surveillance security patrol with that of the navy, the air force and other relevant agencies.

“These are some of the things we are doing; we have increased our domain awareness all to put an eye on what is going on the ocean and the sea.

“I believe that piracy will soon be history.”

He said that piracy had been a major challenge in maritime operations, adding, however, that there had been positive changes in the industry, especially in NIMASA.

The director-general however, urged stakeholders in the maritime sector to support the fight against piracy in order to actualise their desires in the business.

“We have a huge market; we have smart people and with summary we gather a lot of potentials that are untapped.

“If the potentials are tapped, it has the capacity and capability of transforming Nigeria to a maritime hub which will dovetail to economic deployment.

“In the Philippine, you have over a million seafarers. On an average vessel, a seafarer earn between seven to 10,000 dollars per day.

“Now if you have a million seafarers earning 10 thousand dollars a day, it can give you an idea of how much that will generate to a country.

“Let’s even take Nigeria, we have about 600 Cabotage Registered Vessel, but do not go to that calculation just use 300 registered vessel.

“You have an average of between 50 and 100 persons on a vessel but use the lower figure of 50 persons on a vessel.

“If you have 50 persons on 300 vessels earning 1,000; nobody can earn a thousand dollar.

“You will usually earn more than that, that gives you how much, 1,500 million dollars daily; multiple it by 365 days it is quantum of money.”

According to him, the agency will tap all potentials needed to enable Nigeria to be the hub among West African countries. (NAN)

•Photo shows Dakuku Peterside.

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