LAGOS – The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said newsmen it had positioned a radar and deployed patrol vessels to monitor and safeguard the country’s waterways.
Capt. Warredi Enisuoh, the Director, Shipping Development of NIMASA, told newsmen in Lagos that the moves were aimed at preventing the uncontrolled entry of foreign ships to Nigerian waters.
“The problem is that we have a lot of foreign ships coming in carrying foreign guards.
“There is reason to believe these foreign guards are trained in handling of arms; no doubt about it.
“This poses a danger to our own security. As you well know, a whole lot of arms come in and found themselves in the hands of people, possibly not even trained to handle them legally.
“We don’t know whether this is a new frontier in the business.
“We do not have the capacity to monitor everything, but we will do all we can to help our forces prevent anything of such entering into this country.
“No waterway in the world is safe; every country is got the responsibility to protect their own waterways, depends on the type of challenge that you have.
“We can’t shy away from the fact that we do have those challenges; and that is why the Director-General of NIMASA (Mr Patrick Akpobolokemi) decided to embark on monitoring the Nigerian waters via satellite through radar and also the deployment of patrol vessels out there.
“And it is out of the actions of this particular access that we’ve deployed the intelligence screening that these people are present in our waters and that’s the reason why we have detained quite a lot of the ships.“