While the Nigerian Army counts its gains in the fight against insurgency, the Navy is raising an alarm over the increase in maritime crime in the country.
Though the Navy acknowledges this worrisome trend, its ability to respond adequately to it appears to be limited by various factors.
At a session designed for junior officers on how to police the maritime environment at the Department Of Maritime Warfare, Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji Kaduna, Rear-Admiral Sanmi Alade, said that crime in the territorial waters of the Gulf of Guinea has become sophisticated, as the criminals keep devising various means to the beat the law.
He however added that: “The Nigerian Navy’s cooperation with other maritime stakeholders… has helped in no small measures in curbing many of the threats in our maritime environments. The successes achieved so far through such collaborations should encourage us to proceed towards even greater efforts in the field of cooperation.”
One of the challenges mentioned by speakers at the session is poor communication infrastructure, which they said often affects command and control and makes timely response to crisis situation difficult and also limits the extents to which agencies can offer assistance among themselves.
One of the participants, Lieutenant Chinwe Emeruwa said: “The Nigerian Navy and most maritime related agencies do not have a common network for collating, analyzing, sharing and storing intelligence. Consequently, vital information that would have been used to address crisis situations are not disseminated or accessed.”
Other maritime related crimes were also analyzed at the session, including crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, with recommendations made on how to combat them.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, pirate attacks off Nigeria’s coast have risen by a 3rd, as ships passing through West-Africa’s Gulf of Guinea have increasingly come under threat from gangs wanting to snatch cargoes and crews.
