President Tinubu recently appointed Mr Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji and Akutah Pius Ukeyima as the Chief Executive Officers of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) and the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) respectively. In this report, TOLA ADENUBI looks at challenges for both men. Excerpts
President Bola Tinubu, based on the recommendation of the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola recently changed the leaderships of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) and the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), appointing Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji as the Managing Director/CEO of NIWA and Akutah Pius Ukeyima as the Executive Secretary/CEO, Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC).
With both agencies struggling with issues within their jurisdiction in the Nigerian maritime domain, the new Chief executives obviously have their jobs cut out as they look to settle into their respective offices.
NIWA
Top on the agenda for the new NIWA helmsman will be to tackle incessant boat accidents that has plagued the nation’s inland waterways in recent years. While the agency has been able to tackle the menace headlong within its Lagos Area, not much has been achieved outside Lagos with many wooden boats overloaded and capsizing along the nation’s inland waterways, leading to loss of lives and properties.
The latest incident, which occurred in Taraba State three days after the announcement of Mr Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji as the Managing Director/CEO of NIWA, clearly shows that the new NIWA boss has much up his sleeves.
The flagrant disregard for the use of life jackets by communities situated along the nation’s inland waterways is a major issue that the new NIWA boss must deal with.
For many riverine communities, particularly those situated within the Niger Delta, the campaign for the use of Life Jackets during boat trips has been in the front burner for years due to the mentality of the natives that they can never drown in the water because they come from the area.
While those in the Niger Delta see the use of life jackets as not sometimes necessary, other communities up North are battling with literacy level, which indicates the reason night sailing and overloading of wooden boats has been the norm in such area.
The new NIWA boss has to vigorously campaign against the continuous use of rickety wooden boats, overloading and night sailing, which has been the major causes of boat mishaps in recent months along the nation’s inland waterways.
Patrols on the nations inland waterways has to be increased to tackle the menace of night sailing and overloading of wooden boats in many riverine communities across the country. There should be more training and awareness campaign for boat skippers and captains to reduce the menace of over speeding and drunk-driving which has led to boat mishaps in recent past.
Much successes have been recorded in Lagos because NIWA has established presence in many riverine communities within the State, thus reducing boat mishaps to its barest minimum.
Checks by the Nigerian Tribune have confirmed that NIWA officials check every boat that depart many of this Lagos riverine communities before sailing, thus nipping the issue of overloading and non-use of Life Jackets in the bud.
However, the issue of night sailing is still a worry even in Lagos and the agency has to step up its monitoring and surveillance efforts across the nation’s inland waterways to avoid repeat of boat mishaps on our brown waters.
Nigerian Shippers Council
With illegal checkpoints springing up along the nation’s ports access roads and the cost of doing business at the nation’s ports rising every week, the new Executive Secretary/CEO of the Nigerian Shippers Council, Akutah Pius Ukeyima obviously has some catching up to do from where his predecessor left off.
One of the issues, which currently remains unsolved, is the involvement of men of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) in cargo clearance from the nation’s ports of Apapa and Tin-Can.
The Police have detained many cargoes inside the ports despite being cleared by all relevant agencies of government, which are statutorily mandated to examine cargoes, thus leading to accumulation of demurrages and storage charges on these detained cargoes.
While the issue of police detention is rampant inside the ports, the existence of illegal checkpoints along the nation’s port corridor has been another worry for cargo owners who use the nation’s ports.
Checks have revealed that these illegal checkpoints operated by hoodlums in connivance with security operatives, fleece truckers of receipted billions of Naira and which are eventually transferred on the cargo owners by the truckers.
These activities of illegal fee collections by security operatives and hoodlums at different checkpoints littering the port corridor has gradually increased the cost of doing business at the nation’s ports. Also, the incessant detention of already cleared cargoes by men of the Nigerian Police Force has also increased the cost of doing business at the nation’s ports.
Again, Mr Akutah Pius Ukeyima must as a matter of urgency look to revive the many moribund Inland Dry Ports approved by the Federal Government to decongest the nation’s ports of Apapa and Tin Canwhile also serving as a Port of Origin and Destination for cargoes.
Despite approvals given to many of the inland dry ports scattered across the country years ago, only Kaduna and Dala Inland Dry Ports have been commissioned to begin operation, while the rest had been left in a state of uncertainty even as more cargoes arrive the nation’s ports.
Family compensation issues has continued to mar the commencement of the Ibadan Inland dry port in Olorisaoko, the nearest among the dry ports to Nigeria’s busiest ports of Apapa and Tin-Can, thereby making the project to foot-drag.
The inland dry port in Heipang, Jos, Plateau State has also foot-dragged since the concessionaire, Duncan Maritime Ventures pulled out of the project some three years ago. Though effort has been on to shop for another investor for the Jos Inland dry port, the project has remained in the works more than seven years since its conception.
Ensuring that the cost of doing business at the nations port is reduced to the barest minimum is an issue that must be top on the agenda facing the new NSC Boss.
Also, the new NSC Executive Secretary must see to the quick completion of these inland dry ports project if the nation must tap from the abundant benefits that the projects seek to bring to the nation’s economy.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNEÂ
and then