As Minister Calls For Patronage of Nigerian Academies

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA has, after a rigorous screening process selected 200 young Nigerian from across the six geo-political zones of the country for Seafaring courses in Maritime Academies/Universities in India, Greece and the Philippines under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme, NSDP

Dr. Bashir Jamoh, Director General, NIMASA

Speaking the flag off of the Cadetship programme, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, emphasized that the NSDP  started 10 years ago when NIMASA launched out to invest heavily in building human capacity and development by training Nigerian youths between the ages of 17 and 22 to acquire theoretical skills and practical, hands-on knowledge in world-renown Maritime Training Institutions across the world.

According to Dr. Jamoh    “The NSDP is a Special Purpose Vehicle, which the Agency has used to actualize its  lofty dream and create channels to bridge knowledge deficits especially in qualified, competent and certified seafarers  as answer to the dwindling number of competent seafarers, especially the officers’ cadre in Nigeria’s Maritime Labour pool”.

Jamoh explained that the enactment of the Cabotage Act, 2003 was very ambitious at the time because one of the pillars of the Law states that; all companies that do business in our coastal waters MUST have Nigerian seafarers onboard their vessels as crew except where Nigerians are not qualified to man such vessels.

“To our chagrin, we discovered that we did not have the numbers and to our shame, we began issuing manning waivers. Building a pool from scratch was inevitable, and so the journey to train world-class seafarers began”.

“We took a sectoral approach to solve this problem by putting forward the training of seafarers first. We have since inception, trained 2,041 cadets across different countries of the world like the United Kingdom, India, Egypt, Romania and the Philippines in Marine Engineering and Nautical Sciences, chosen deliberately to gain strategic knowledge from their vast experience in seafaring and Maritime Education and Training”.

Speaking in terms of numbers Dr. Jamoh disclosed that “As of today, 656 Cadets have qualified as officers in the fields of Marine Engineering and Nautical Sciences with a Certificate of Competency (CoC) from the UK, Egypt and the Philippines. The Agency is preparing 360 cadets for CoC examinations while 93 are already enrolled for CoC. 446 are currently undergoing sea-time experience onboard vessels scattered all over the world. Through the NSDP scheme, let me quickly add that we have trained 31 Naval architects, which will form the basis for our shipbuilding needs”

“Besides statistics, the NSDP scheme can identify with faces and names of beneficiaries who took the opportunity to represent the country, with both hands. All batches of cadets that we have sent out have not disappointed – in fact, they have won academic laurels from different institutions across the world; they are competing for jobs in the global seafarers’ market and in our maritime domain; more Nigerians officers are working onboard in good numbers like never before”.

“It gladdens my heart to inform you that the Agency as an equal opportunity player has a good number of female officers. In our midst today are some of our officers who took time off their busy schedules to grace this occasion and to encourage the young ones about to cut their teeth in the seafaring profession – please stand up for recognition, our invited officers. Because of them, we have since issued a Marine Notice for Cessation of Issuance of Manning Waivers”.

Adressing the Batch three NSDP Cadets, Jamoh said “Today is the beginning of an interesting voyage for these youngsters. 200 of them, representing different states of the federation, our ambassadors, here to attest to the fact that seafaring transcend politics, religion and gender. Fate has thrust you to the limelight; all of you are our brand ambassadors, so we implore you to go out and represent Nigeria to the best of your abilities, carry yourselves with pride and understand that you are the future and face of seafaring in Nigeria. We have made a lot of sacrifices to give you this pedestal so that you can acquire skillsets that will give you the edge to compete in a sector that is increasingly being driven by technology and innovation”.

In his remarks, the Hon. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi thanked the Board and Management of NIMASA for continuing the NSDP programme but charged them to look at and patronize Nigerian Maritime Academies for future training of Cadets either under the NSDP or other arrangement for the human capital needs of Nigeria’s Maritime and Oil and Gas industries.

Maritime stakeholders at the event charged the Cadets to be of good conduct, make Nigeria proud and take their place among top seafarers in the world.