Why Nigeria lost out in IMO Council elections — SOAN

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7 years ago

THE Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) has said that Nigeria lost out in the recently conducted elections into the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Council because the nation neglected some critical maritime development programmes.

Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune exclusively, the Chairman of SOAN, Mr Greg Ogbeifun stated that the ship-owners are particularly angry that a nation like Kenya and Liberia beat Nigeria to elections into IMO Council.

According to Ogbeifun, “If we had grown our indigenous capacity in shipping, developed our indigenous maritime academy, helped to grow indigenous maritime infrastructure, the whole world will hear. They will know.

“But we were deceiving ourselves by going to London to lobby nations to vote for us without putting our house in order. The whole world knows what is prevalent in Nigeria. They know that Nigeria’s maritime domain has been abandoned. The IMO monitors these things.

“We ship-owner’s are full of anger. We are not disappointed, we are angry because Nigeria otherwise should be a maritime hub not only in the Gulf of Guinea or West African sub-region, but in the African continent as a whole. Who is Kenya if we are taking of maritime in Africa?

“We are talking of establishing a national fleet, but that has died prematurely. The IMO trip was turned into a political jamboree because no stakeholder was taken along.

“We are visibly angry at our failed attempts to get re-elected into IMO Council seats. We cannot get recognition globally when we have failed to put our house in order.”

It would be recalled that the last time Nigeria won its IMO Council bid was in 2007 under Dr. Ade Dosunmu who was then the Director-General of NIMASA and every attempt made since 2011 to return to the council has failed.

Forty countries were elected into the IMO Council in three categories for the 2017/2018 biennial.

The successful countries in IMO Category A are China, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Panama, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and United Arab Emirates were elected into IMO Category B while Bahamas, Belgium, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey were elected into IMO Category C.

Category A council members are countries with the largest interest in providing international shipping services, while Category B are countries with the largest interest in international seaborne trade:

Category C, which has 20 countries are those with special interests in maritime transport or navigation” and whose election to the Council will ensure the representation of all major geographic areas of the world,” according to IMO.

A breakdown of the votes showed that Morocco scored 134 votes; Egypt – 133; South Africa -121; Kenya – 120 and Liberia – 116. Singapore came top with 142 votes to beat the 20 countries in Category C.