“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible”–Wayne Dyer

Notwithstanding the progress made at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, MAN, the Rector of the Institution, Commodore Duja Effedua Emmanuel (rtd), believes that goal setting and achieving national targets in the country is not in alignment.

He is of the view that operational gaps exist which must be covered in pursuit of his vision to train and retrain staffs of the Academy and prepare them for future tasks of the ongoing rebuilding and repositioning of the Academy.

Having identified Capacity Building as one of the gaps needed to be addressed if the Academy is not to slide into the stagnation of the past, the Rector has declared a renewed onslaught on Human Capacity Development as a vital component of the Restructuring mandate assigned to the Rector by the Federal Government.

Commodore Duja Emmanuel Effedua (rtd.), Rector, MAN

Apart from strengthening staff to do their work more efficiently by exposing them to modern ways of carrying out their duties, the Rector disclosed that attitudinal change is also needed to reorder the Performance Narrative index which before now is hinged on just coming to work and doing very little or nothing and expecting to collect salary at the end of the month.

“In my younger days, I use to know that the Civil Service was a highly organized sector with plenty of discipline. Being a civil servant earned one a lot of respect because of the conduct and thoroughness exemplified by civil servants in their work”

One of several Swimming Pools at the Academy

“Unfortunately, that efficiency has eroded over the years because other considerations were put into the work force. People had to be eminently qualified for their positions, which meant that when a Head of Department, Director or Permanent Secretary speaks, you know”.

“Somehow, this generation of modern civil servants lack the quality training which former civil servants had; this has led to operational gaps which has adversely impacted the quality of inputs and outputs expected in the service. The training we are carrying out are tailored to correct this incongruity and restore efficiency because without such efficiency, I worry that sustainability of what we have done could become an issue”.

To forestall  and ensure that the global rating attained by the Academy is retained for posterity, the Rector said the identified manpower gaps has to be corrected so as to maintain standards and keep the flag flying.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t want to insult anyone by saying that there are a lot of incompetent people around, but it appears so. Several persons are not as efficient as they should be. The people you expect to be able to use their initiative don’t know what to do”.

“You give a man a task and end up doing it yourself. They don’t seem to understand their responsibilities, so who is the boss? If a boss gives you a task and the boss ends up doing it for you, then it means you are the boss”, the Rector lamented.

“So I figured that there ought to be a way out, and I spoke to the Perm Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transportation, FMOT who is a very articulate and organized person and she said that she had something under her sleeve which was coming up soon”.

“Coincidentally, the Ministry brought in this same company to come and run the program for all the people under the Ministry”.

“The training was fantastic and I told them that this was what I have been searching for, so I told the company to come to the Academy and let us see how we can launch at least 80% of our staff, including those in the Lagos and Abuja liaison offices to have this training carried out for them”

The Rector emphasized that all staff of the Academy and select maritime stakeholders will benefit from the training for the good of the industry to align the performance index to expectations of the government from the Academy.