- Russia, Israel wars posing new maritime security threats in GoG – Jamoh
Despite having a clean bill of health with zero piracy incidents recorded in Nigeria for about two years, the piracy incidents in other parts of the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) has increased by 45 percent with 32 incidents recorded in 2023.
The Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh OFR, revealed this during a recent engage with the House of Representatives Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration.
Jamoh stressed that ongoing wars in Russia/ Ukraine and Israeli/ Palestine has heralded new maritime security threats in the GoG, even as he maintained that Nigeria should be concerned about the development even though its piracy incidents for 2023 was zero.
While highlighting the agency’s success in addressing maritime security via collaborations with Nigerian Navy and other regional and international partners, the NIMASA boss asserted that Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine wars has seen many vessels change direction towards the GoG to manoeuvre.
“Now with the increase of that shipping activity following wars in other regions, areas, we have an exposure again and our platforms may not be able to contain more. So that is the reason we have to go back to study. We have to know what our new target will be. We are not going to relax because Nigeria is reporting zero but ensure the Gulf of Guinea is also reporting zero piracy incidents,” the NIMASA boss remarked.
He revealed that in 2022, 22 piracy incidents were recorded in the GoG region with Nigeria having zero incidents while the GoG numbers grew to 32 in 2023 as Nigeria maintained zero.
The NIMASA boss also noted that the agency has contributed N199.42billion into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federal government in the last six years.
Jamoh said the agency, despite not being a revenue generating agency, has consistently remitted funds to the federal government as part of its contribution to economic development of the country.
Giving a breakdown of the revenue, Jamoh said the agency remitted N21.04billion in 2018, N24.75 billion in 2019 and N31.72billion in 2020.
In 2021, he said the agency contributed the sum of N37.93billion , N42.08billion in 2022 and 41.90billion in 2023.
