The Nigerian Navy has In line with its statutory mandate, in the past five years under the leadership of Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas activated dedicated and routine operations to bridge the security gaps in the nation’s maritime domain to enable legitimate socio-economic activities to thrive despite inherent challenges.
The statutory role of the Nigerian Navy (NN) has always been defined- protecting the territorial integrity of the nation. In the past five years, however, this role has been consolidated upon under the present leadership of the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas.
This has been achieved through the high premium placed on operational availability of ships, training, and motivation of personnel to ensure a zero tolerant posture to criminality within the nation’s maritime domain.
This dedication to ensuring a safe and secure maritime domain is not surprising given that Nigeria, has a coastline of about 420nautical miles (nm) and an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200nm covering about 84,000 square nm of the National Maritime Environment (NME).
Also, the nation’s maritime area of interest which includes the entire Gulf of Guinea and is about 574,800 square nautical miles spanning a total coastline of 2,874nm from Senegal to Angola is a huge maritime space rich in numerous hydrocarbon and mineral resources and also serves as a strategic route for maritime trade.
However, insecurity has over the years been a considerable source of concern as the nation’s network of oil and gas installations as well as associated shipping have been threatened by maritime crimes such as piracy, sea robbery, Crude Oil Theft (COT), illegal oil bunkering, smuggling, Illegal Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, militancy and kidnapping for ransom.
In the past five years that the current Vice Admiral has held the helm of leadership, he has enforced the need to evolve new approaches to combat the spate of insecurity in the maritime environment.
To achieve this, he promulgated his Strategic Directive 1 and 2 (SD1 and 2) when he assumed office. The SD1 which focused on eight key priority areas to be achieved by the NN under his command covered operations, fleet renewal, logistics, infrastructural development, and human resource development among others, while the SD 2 was later promulgated in 2016 to consolidate on the achievements of SD1.
According to information sourced from credible sources, the achievements from 2015 when Vice Admiral Ibas assumed office till 2020 include maritime operations, ship/boat procurement, and constructed and renovated projects.
A review of the maritime operations data showed that in the years under review, pirate attacks in the GoG were about 339 while those in Nigerian waters were 214 and sea robbery 107. Also in the period under review, 3,136,877 barrels of crude oil; 1,001,564 metric tonnes of AGO; 2,591,907 liters of PMS, and 3,574,360 liters of DPK were destroyed.
Also, 4,229 persons were arrested; 5,099 illegal refineries destroyed; 404 vessels; 439 barges; and 531 speed boats arrested while 2,977 wooden boats were either arrested and destroyed; 140 tankers/trucks arrested; 404 arrested and impounded vehicles; 12,008 storage tanks destroyed; and a total of 77,680 bags of rice at the cost of N20,000 per bag (approximately N1.6billion) intercepted.
Under ships/boats procurement, 305 small ships and Inland Patrol Crafts (below 35m); 14 houseboats; four barges/tugboats, and 11 capital ships (35m and above) were procured. Meanwhile, for new construction and renovated projects- 3,638 new units were constructed across the nation while 1,613 quarters were renovated.
Source:
Thisdaylive.com
