Maritime Academies: Jolapomo, Dosunmu and Ovude disagreed

unemployment may continue to plaque the country for a long time to come if Chief Isaac Jolapomo, Chairman Nigerian Ship owners Association, NISA,  and other members of ISAN go ahead with plans to go to the Philippines to recruit seafarers for their vessels.

The move, according to chief Jolapomo became necessary because Nigerian maritime academies lack the facilities and the personnel to deliver quality training to aspiring cadets in the country.

In an exclusive chat with Global Newsgate in Lagos, at a public function, chief Jolamomo lamented the quality of cadets churned out in the country. He said young seafarers are going to sea for the money and not because of their passion for the sea. They go with the sole objective of making money and not to work for their employers, a classic case, Jolapomo said, of putting the cart before the horse. “we can only have quality seafarers if we have vessels to train with and qualified professionals to train them, the kind of training Nigerians cadets are getting is not adequate and this why some of us are thinking of going abroad to recruit.”

                 Former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency of Nigeria, NIMASA, Dr. Ade Dosunmu on his part told our correspondent that for Nigeria to produce seafarers that could compete with their foreign counterparts there is the urgent need for government to establish more maritime academies in the country. Dosunmu said a country like the Philippine with a population of 80 million people, has over 40 maritime academies and supplies over 30% of seafarers world wide. For this, their economy is boosted with more than one billion dollars annually.  “This was why we wanted to establish a maritime academy in Badagry, and other parts of Nigeria but some myopic Nigerians brought political sentiments into it and-where are we today?”

Continuing, Dosunmu stated “Intervention like the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme, NSDP which I pioneered was a strategic stop gap measure intended to serve as a prelude to a comprehensive human capacity building policy in the sector. When we initiated NSDP, we decide to commence training abroad because we lacked the required competencies in terms of infrastructure and personnel. This initiative was to be immediately complemented by expansion of local training capacity, our thinking then was that we could start the maritime Academy in Badagry and others in areas like Lokoja and Oguta to short circuit problems associated with placements for cadets in Nigeria. We had also commenced preliminary discussions with institutions currently training the NSDP cadets to provide technical support and exchange programmes ranging from two-three years to assist the local faculties of these institutions. We had also on that scorecard, the development of some of our local universities to offer relevant programmes.”

Dosunmu’s call for the establishment of more maritime academies was however opposed by Mr. Felix Ovude, former Executive Director, Marine and Operations, Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA. Ovude said the increase in the number of universities has not improved the quality of education in the country. He described some existing universities as glorified secondary schools which churn out half baked graduates every year. In ovude’s opinion, “quality should be of greater concern rather than number of institutions providing trainings. To rationalize number of institutions to population would not provide the required competencies if we lack the infrastructure and professionals who could impart such trainings.”

 Ovude also called for appropriate sanctions for those who fail to implement policies as formulated. In his words “Beyond the rhetorics of policy formulation year after year, there is need to benchmark implementation guidelines. We have several policies in this country. Policy on housing for all, education for all and many others but how well have we implemented these policies? Until we begin to sanction people who fail at the level of implementing policies, we shall continue to lament our under development.”

The move by some indigenous ship owners to recruit seafarers from abroad was not welcomed by Ovude. He frowned at the idea and appealed to all concerned to look in wards, not only to reduce unemployment in the country but to enhance economic growth and development.