Strengthening Nigeria’s anti-piracy war through enabling legal framework

Recent reports by the International Maritime Bureau indicating that piracy and armed sea robbery attacks, which were before now prevalent in the Gulf of Guinea, especially within Nigeria’s territorial have shifted to Somalia is seen as salutary by industry stakeholders. This development however brings to fore the need for Nigeria and other countries in the Gulf of Guinea zone to consolidate on the promises, especially by the National Assembly in the passage of the Anti-Piracy Bill currently before it. FRANCIS EZEM reports.

The International Maritime Bureau IMB,
the global piracy watchdog in response to the worsening cases of piracy and sea robbery in 2009 declared Nigeria’s territorial waters second most unsafe in the world after those of the Failed State of Somalia.

The Malaysia-based watchdog in its 2010 and 2011 reports respectively also said that Nigeria also had the second highest cases of sea robbery and piracy after Somalia. Piracy is violent armed attacks on ships, boats and other water transportation crafts with a certain nautical miles within the open sea while sea robbery is when such attacks happen within a country’s territorial waters or what experts call Exclusive Economic Zones EEZ.

The Nigerian Trawlers Owners Association, NITOA, umbrella body for all indigenously owned industrial fishing companies corroborated this report, when it disclosed that its members lost a whopping N118.5billion between 2003 and 2011 due to the increasing menace of pirates and sea robbers on Nigeria’s territorial waters.

The then National President of the association, Joseph Overo, said that in addition to this huge financial loss , the area of operation of the members has been reduced by over 70 per cent as places such as the Escravous, Forcados, River Ramos, River Dodo, Pennigton and Brass, among several others have been declared no-go areas because of piracy attacks.

Records also show that in 2004, there were about 44 industrial fishing firm, which also represented the membership strength of the association, which had reduced to only four, as the others have closed shop. Similarly, there were over 250 fishing trawlers, which also represented the entire fleet of the association within the review period, which reduced to less than 100.

Other statistics also show that the association lost a total of 44 crew members in 2003, 121 in 2004, 374 in 2005 and 627 in 2006, 1, 177 crew and other members of staff in 2007, 1,045 in 2008 while 1, 265 and 1,430 deaths were recorded in 2010 and 2011 respectively arising from uncontrolled piracy attacks on Nigerian waters.

In response to these developments, most shipping lines declared Nigeria a high risk area with the attendant hike on insurance premiums on Nigerian-bound cargo even as most American and European countries; including the United States of America and Britain issued security alerts to their nationals intending to travel to Nigeria. The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA took the bold initiative of adopting measures to combat this rather ugly development.

One of such initiatives was the signing of a boat supply contract with Global West Vessels Specialist Limited, under which GWVSNL will supply and crew the boats for policing the entire stretch of the Nigerian coastline from Lagos to Calabar, the Cross River State capital with an initial investment of $103,400,000.00 (N16 billion), for 10 years in the first instance under a no cure, no pay basis.

The company by the agreement is expected to provide a minimum of one and a maximum of 20 boats, among others. In adopting this option, the then Director General of the agency, Dr. Patrick Akpobolokemi, had argued that the agency at that time had not single platform on its fleet, a development that also hindered its ability to collect its statutory three per cent freight charge on every ship that calls at the nation’s seaports.

He had also argued that the bureaucracy association with approvals and release of funds by the government might pose a major challenge to the determination of the agency to give the pirates and sea robbers a good fight of their lives and thus adopted the outsourcing model.

Akpobolokemi had while justifying the contract, said the agency’s decision to engage a private firm to supply platforms to patrol the nation’s waterfronts was due to the increasing menace of piracy, especially around the Lagos axis. According to him, the increasing activities of pirates constitute a threat to the Nigerian economy, a development that was made worse by the bureaucratic system of governance, which impeded its ability to rapidly respond to these issues of piracy.

He had said: “The menace of piracy and handicap faced by the agency occasioned by bureaucratic civil service culture, the agency entered into a concession alliance with a private firm, which provides boats for the patrol of the nation’s waters will lead to the reduction of piracy in the country” The agency had also installed a Satellite Surveillance System that monitors the nation’s waters on a 24-hour basis.

The satellite surveillance system, which was launched in conjunction with the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force, is a 24- hour surveillance centre that has the capability to detect boats, ships and objects of predefined cross-section floating on the waters. These objects include any aircraft that ditches and remains on the surface during the satellite over-flight.

The surveillance satellite system also has the ability to set range rings and restricted areas for which when penetrated by an intruder, the system gives an alarm thereby alerting the operator of watchkeeper. Another major strategy by the agency was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding MoU with the Nigerian Navy, Under the MoU, which led to the formation of the Nigerian Maritime Guard Command, the agency provides platforms and other logistics for operatives of the Nigerian Navy to man the platforms provided under the contract. This was also to enable the agency perform its statutory functions of ensuring safety and security within the nation’s maritime domain.

The agency had also packaged an Anti-Piracy Bill, which is expected to provide a formal and legal framework for the sustenance of this war. The import of the bill was that the term ‘piracy’ is alien to the nation’s body of laws, a development that has made prosecuting suspected pirates difficult. Recent reports by the IMB indicate that the incidences of piracy in Nigeria have been pushed towards the Gulf of Aden, specifically Somalia.

This is given that the country in the last six one year has not recorded a successful major piracy or sea robbery attacts. Also, in what appeared an appraisal of these initiatives, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai commended the agency for its anti-piracy campaign, which, he said has drastically reduced the incidences of pirate and sea robbery attacks on the nation’s waterways.

The army-boss, who spoke during the renewal of the MoU with the Navy, praised the incumbent Director General of the agency, Mr. Haruna Jauro over the agency’s successful combating of piracy and other criminal activities on Nigeria’s waterways, which he argued is quite commendable.

The NIMASA-boss however canvassed the continuous support of the Army in fighting piracy and other criminal activities on the nation’s territorial waters, insisting that the partnership with all the arms with the nation’s military has been very useful in reducing the menace and thus the needed to be sustained.. Maritime stakeholders therefore believe that this need places additional moral burden on the National Assembly to urgently pass the bill into law.