How Amaechi is struggling to tame SAA

AN anchorage is a location at sea where ships can lower anchors. Anchorages are where anchors are lowered and utilised, whereas moorings usually are tethering to buoys or something similar. The locations usually have conditions for safe anchorage in protection from weather conditions, and other hazards. The purpose of resting a ship at sea securely can be for waiting to enter ports, as well as taking on cargo or passengers where insufficient port facilities exist.

In Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve center, there are two anchorages along the Lagos entry waters for shipping activities; the Lagos Anchorage Area (LAA) and the Secure Anchorage Area (SAA). While LAA is operated and managed by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the SAA is operated and managed by a private firm, Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL). In the words of the immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Ship-owners Association (NISA), Aminu Umar, “The difference between the LAA and the SAA is down to a private car park and a public car park. While a car owner is more assured of the security of his vehicle in a private car park, such is not the case if he parks his vehicle along the street. Same thing applies to the two anchorages in Lagos waters, the SAA is privately managed and ships have more assurances of not getting attacked unlike in the LAA that is government managed and the assurance of attack is not too convincing.”

 

 Issues with SAA operation

The Ministry of Transportation and the NPA have publicly faulted the operations of the SAA due to the fact that a private firm, OMSL is in charge of revenue collection of government funds. Aside the issue of who collects what, the NPA has continually asserted that it is constitutionally empowered to decide who operates an anchorage, a situation that is not the case with the SAA.

According to the NPA Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman, in letters written to the Minister of Transportation on SAA, “The mandate of the Nigerian Navy according to the law is to provide security in Nigeria’s Territorial Waters (including the Economic Exclusive Zone). The authority submits that the anchorage is an integral part of a seaport and that by virtue of its enabling law; the Nigerian Ports Authority Act, it is the responsibility of the authority to chart, designate, own, operate and manage Ports Anchorage Areas except where such responsibility is entrusted to a third party in accordance with Section 9 of the Ports Act.”

 

 A ministerial directive ignored

Acting on the advice of the NPA Managing Director, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi in February of 2020, after a maritime security meeting held in Lagos, declared the SAA illegal, and backed the NPA on its dismantling.

According to the Minister of Transportation, “The SAA should have stopped by now. And I just told the Managing Director of the NPA that they should write to everybody that the moment any vessel pays for security at the SAA, then such vessel is breaking the law of the land.

“In advanced clime, the government secures the state, not individuals. I was the one that gave the directive that the SAA should be dismantled, not the NPA. The NPA only carried out my instruction.”

However, nine months after that outburst from the Minister of Transportation on SAA, the facility has continued to operate.

 

 Is Amaechi helpless?

For Captain Tajudeen Alao, National President of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM), the Minister of Transportation sounds helpless over SAA judging by his utterances during the 2020 World Maritime Day celebration. In the words of Captain Alao, “It is a disaster that in a country like ours, we are still dealing with this kind of anomaly.

“In September of 2020, during the World Maritime Day celebration in Lagos, Rotimi Amaechi cried out that as far as he was concerned, the SAA was canceled. However, the minister said that the SAA has continued to operate due to the involvement of the Ministry of Defence in the whole issue.

“As a professional, I know that it is illegal for any organization other than the NPA to run or manage an anchorage. It is only in Nigeria that this kind of thing happens. If people are still patronizing the SAA, that does not make it legitimate. I have travelled all over the world, and it is only here in Nigeria that stuffs like this occur.

“This is a facility located outside 12 miles on international waters along the Lagos waters, and the NPA has not declared the place as an anchorage area. To make a place an anchorage, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has to vet it, and then it goes for charting. The only people that can go and do that on-behalf of Nigeria is the Ministry of Transportation through the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the NPA. These are international procedures before a place can be declared an anchorage area.

“However, with the way the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, sounded during the World Maritime Day in Lagos, the situation looks hopeless because the minister sounded helpless on the issue. If the Minister at his level cannot handle the situation, then it’s obvious that what is bigger than the rat has entered into the rat hole.”

 

Power play

THE Minister of Transportation’s outburst during the World Maritime Day in September 2020 indicated a power play between the Nigerian Navy through the Ministry of Defence and the NPA through the Ministry of Transportation.

“Despite an order dismantling the SAA, the facility has continued to operate due to an agreement it has with the Nigerian Navy and the Ministry of Defence. Their claim is premised on the assertion that the Ministry of Defence has every right to ensure security on Nigeria’s territorial waters,” the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi had lamented this when he joined the World Maritime Day event virtually.

On the imbroglio surrounding the SAA, a maritime security expert who would not want his name in print explained that the operators of the SAA had been able to ignore the directive of the Minister of Transportation and the NPA because of its agreement with the Nigerian Navy.

“The arrangement that birthed the SAA was between the OMSL and the Nigerian Navy. NPA, NIMASA were not involved from the start, and that is why the operator of SAA have been able to ignore the directive of the Minister of Transportation. For SAA to be dismantled, the Navy or the Ministry of Defence will have to give that directive.

“Don’t forget that both NPA and NIMASA fall under the Ministry of Transportation, while the Navy falls under the Ministry of Defence. The Minister of Defence and Transportation are both members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC). It is a power play that is playing out at the very top level of governance in this country. Yes, SAA has been able to restore sanity in terms of security for vessels waiting at anchorage along the Lagos waters, however, it has done that at a very expensive cost. We hear of vessels paying more than a thousand dollars daily while waiting at the SAA.”

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

ICYMI: CBN Lists Business Activities Eligible For N75bn Youth Investment Fund

THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed main business activities and sectors in the Nigerian economy that are eligible to access its N75 billion Youth Investment Fund…

#EndSARS: Fr Mbaka Asks Buhari, Past Leaders To Apologise To Nigerians

Controversial Catholic priest and Spiritual Director of Adoration Ministry, Enugu, Nigeria, (AMEN), Rev Fr Ejike Mbaka, has taken a swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari and past leaders of the country demanding that the President should apologize to the country, especially the youth, on behalf of himself and his predecessors, for causing Nigerians so much pain…