Captain Alfred Oniye is a United States-trained maritime and anti-piracy security expert. He has led several successful anti-piracy sea operations and holds the first PhD in maritime security and safety management in the world. He speaks with ADAKU ONYENUCHEYA on causes of insecurity on the waterways as well as possible solutions.

We have continued to witness insecurities in the waters. What should Nigeria and other African countries do to check this?
With my experience as a well-certified maritime security specialist on this job and as a well-trained detective, I could understand that the insecurity in Africa is being backed up by high-profile personalities. That is why I would boldly say that you cannot eradicate sea pirates in Africa because it is a business.

People only arrest the boys who carry out the operation at sea, but nobody bothers to investigate who financed it, because somebody needs to bunker the vessels. Who bunkered it? Who gives the information? It is an organised crime. Some people gather the information and supply it to those who will finance it. While some people own the vessels.

When you arrest and only detain the boys, you are not investigating this matter. This crime involves high-profile personalities and some security personnel. The baseline for everything is unemployment. When you train people to be more professionals and you don’t engage them, they will use their professionalism to commit crimes.

It takes a well-loaded navigator to know where your vessel is anchored and know when to strike. It takes a good underwater welder to know how to go under the sea before he can burst the pipe and it takes a very good security man securing that area to say there is a pipe here, come and burst it. This is an organised crime.

It is not an easy thing for a sea pirate to just come to the sea, know where your vessel is positioned and hijack it. They work by information, and some of the information is being leaked from the ports, through the chartering and sometimes they get some of it through the crew, and then who bunkers the vessel.

What is the reality of Nigerian seafarers? There have been issues around poor welfare, neglect, unemployment and lack of competent hands in seafaring countries?
The first role of the seafarer is to ensure the movement of goods globally through the sea. About 97 per cent of what we use globally is being transported through the sea. Who are the people that move the trade? It is the seafarers and that is why we call them essential workers, people you cannot do without.

The world cannot survive without a seafarer. During COVID-19, everywhere was shut down, including aviation, armed forces and entire barracks. But no country dared to shut down their seaports.

I was fully active at sea. I was covering East Africa on the Maersk line and most of the equipment, the medical supplies and other things needed within Africa, seafarers must be the ones to sail them in. Your weapons, your automobile, clothes, agriculture, these are the responsibilities of seafarers.

But when it comes to Nigeria, the seafarers are underrated and not celebrated whereas they are the ones generating this money. If seafarers drop anchor in Nigeria, NIMASA will stop making and generating money. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) will not exist again; the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) will be nowhere to be found. This is it is the seafarers who bring what they generate.

There have been claims that Nigerian seafarers lack requisite skills and are unemployable. Could you confirm this?
The Nigeria-trained seafarers are still better than the ones NIMASA train outside the country. As a well-trained seafarer, I can boldly tell you with my experience in this job, the ones NIMASA trained outside, through the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) with all the licence, have to start as cadets when they get back to the country.

They have the academic and professional training, but they lack the operational competence, and this job is more of operations. We have seen most of them and I must tell you that, when you bring a second officer from those trained outside by NIMASA and the ones trained in Nigeria, set the same exam for them and I can tell you those trained by NIMASA will fail woefully.

Mind you, NIMASA should stop training because they are adding to the problem of insecurity by still sending cadets outside for the training programme. Before NIMASA started this training, we already had over 70 per cent that were trained but unemployed. So, when NIMASA started the NSDP, the number of unemployed cadets and seafarers increased.

NIMASA cannot boldly say they have employed 10 per cent out of the ones they have trained. The fact remains that this is one of the baselines for insecurity on the waters. What I would have expected NIMASA to do is that those that have been trained in Nigerian should be retrained to be more professional so that they can fit into the jobs on ground, As an investigator, I know that some people are eating so much and fat from this training programme.

The marine and blue economy is estimated to generate $300 billion for Africa and support 49 million jobs, while Nigeria’s potential is valued at $296 billion. How can these opportunities be properly harnessed?
Nigeria’s maritime economy has not been tapped, to be sincere with ourselves. It’s an industry that controls over 90 per cent of our economy, and we are only dealing with oil. You won’t believe that close to 80 per cent of what we consume in Nigeria is being imported. So we have not tapped the potential.

It is just like the Cabotage Act that says any ship that must sail within the Nigerian waters must be built, owned, manned, and crewed by Nigerians. Sincerely speaking, up till now, we haven’t built seagoing ships. 80 per cent of the ships that sail within the Nigerian water are owned by foreigners. If we give attention to that industry, this country will be a better place. I don’t see the reason why this country should be poor.

The Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) disbursement crisis has continued to linger. Do you think this fund will resolve the issues you highlighted?
It will resolve it if it is applied correctly. When you disburse such funds and the people still go outside to purchase vessels that will sail within their waters, that means that money is going outside. So, they should put up a policy that will make the money to stay in the Nigerian economy.
Let’s encourage sea-going shipbuilding in Nigeria. Vessels that sail within the country must be built here. If we encourage that, they won’t take the money out; they will invest it here and that will create jobs for more Nigerians.

Do we have the infrastructure and steel components to build ships in Nigeria?
We do have. I would say the government is not enforcing existing laws. If the law says any vessel that will sail within the Nigerian water must be built here, that means they know that the potential and infrastructure are there.

All you need is to create an enabling environment and you will see investors coming in. The funny thing is that building and developing the maritime industry does not need government funding. It only needs an enabling environment and assuring the investors that their investments are safe.

Why do we have a Public Private Partnership (PPP)? The government ensures the safety of the environment that can accommodate the business and you will see these people coming in to invest. This is a problem of political will. What if I tell you that most of the big ships don’t come into Nigeria water?
They discharge in Cotonou and a smaller ship will bring the cargo into Nigeria. Even the smaller ships that bring in these cargoes, 90 per cent of them are owned by foreigners.

What has the Merchant Seafarers Association of Nigeria done to correct the anomaly?
We came on board in 2018 when we saw this abnormality. So we said it was time for us to stand up and let people know that we are the ones feeding in this country. Imagine if we don’t take out your crude oil and bring back your refined product, you won’t have revenue and when there is no revenue, most agencies won’t even have allocation.

Sometimes I see police harassing Nigerian seafarers when they are supposed to be celebrating them. If Nigerian seafarers don’t sail, the police won’t have allocation and there won’t be money to manage the Nigerian police.

If seafarers drop anchor today, in the next 20 years, Nigeria will not recover from the loss because NIMASA, NPA and the Shippers’ Council will not generate money. Even the Customs service they are generating will drop drastically because it is when we sail in the ships, that is when the customs can have duty paid to them. The customs are generating trillions of naira because we are sailing in the ships.

NIMASA should compel all vessels presently sailing within our waters to start employing Nigerian seafarers and this is all we need. I must tell you that the insecurity will reduce drastically and again the security personnel salaries should be increased because what they are earning is peanuts. There is no future when you are earning peanuts, you will want to steal because, after your retirement, you need something to fall back on.