MARITIME security experts have revealed that no country can comprehensively handle maritime threats on its own except through Global Maritime Partnerships (GMP).
Disclosing this during the Blue Economy Week held recently at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, AkwaIbom State, the experts advocated greater synergy between the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) by way of harmonizing the management and control of critical security infrastructure in order to achieve greater efficiency and focus.
In his paper titled Maritime Challenges in the Gulf of Guinea, the former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral DJ Ezeoba stated that”, “The Navy, globally, has the same characteristics. The only difference is that we dominate different maritime spaces. As humans, we share different mentalities but the philosophy of maritime security is the same globally.
“What defines the difference is the philosophy of the individuals who try to propagate this philosophy which comes with peculiarities and complexities of the operating environment. The peculiarities and complexities of your operating environment determines the outcomes of your efforts.
“No country can comprehensively handle maritime threats on its own. Global Maritime Partnerships, GMP, is the antidote to maritime insecurity.”
Also delivering a paper titled: ‘Maritime Domain Awareness: A case Study of Nigeria’s Territorial Waters’, Rear Admiral Austin Oyagha (Rtd) advocated for greater synergy between the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) by way of harmonizing the management and control of critical security infrastructure in order to achieve greater efficiency and focus.
Oyagha said the existence of ungoverned spaces is the lack of coordination, which he said is often driven by political considerations. Oyagha said MDA radars are expected to cover the entire space of the nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) without any blind spot but noted that it is yet to have such full range coverage of the backwaters.
Rear Admiral FD Akpan’s Paper, The Blue Economy: Imperatives for Nigeria, noted that for most people in Africa and in particular Nigeria, the ocean is an unfamiliar phenomenon.
“While many live very close to it, they never get to know it, never venture into it and its vastness is a source of admiration and myth to many. Lack of awareness and the potentials and resources available at sea often leads to government in some of the littoral states placing more emphasis on the development on materials/resources on land and becoming more land conscious in their approaches to policy generation and development drives. This tendency is referred to Sea Blindness or Sea Myopia.
“A littoral country with sea blindness is not aware that maritime supremacy is an important foreign policy tool. It is also the inability to quantify in concrete terms the actual potential of the maritime environment based on research and other empirical evidence” Rear Admiral FD Akpan (rtd) said.
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