7 January 2005
Lagos — NIGERIA'S premier and only Maritime Institution the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) is located in Oron Akwa Ibom State. Established 25 years ago, the institution has clocked the silver jubilee age.
The academy was known as Nautical College of Nigeria until 1988 when in order to broaden the mandate of the institution, federal government promulgated the maritime academy decree (Decree 16). This act changed the institution and expanded its statutory obligation of training all levels and categories of manpower required for the effective and efficient operation of all facets of the Nigerian maritime industry. Between 1988 and now, the mission and vision of the federal government has been achieved as the academy within the period, has experienced great development strides, all in its effort to keep to its mandate.
Within these periods also, the academy has had many acting and substantive Rectors or Administrators.
The current rector of the institution is Mr. Nseyen Ebon, an internationally acclaimed maritime administrator.
Unlike other conventional academic institutions, the Maritime Academy of Nigeria Oron, is a specialized institution, that deals entirely with the development of manpower for the maritime industry in Nigeria. Today, the institution offers courses covering Nautical Science, Marine Engineering, Maritime Transport, Boat/Ship Building Technology at National Diploma and Higher National Diploma levels.
Besides, the Academy offers other courses as post graduate Diploma in shipping technology, specialized seaman training courses, manpower development short courses for the maritime industry, special and tailor-made courses for oil industry operators and others.
Like every institution that must start from the scratch to set goals and objectives for its over all interest, the Rector, Mr. Ebong said that on assumption of office, there was lack of funds in the institution.
"We don't have all the items of equipment as we should need for the kind of training we offer here. We do not have all the staff in terms of quality and quantity that we would require for the kind of business that we offer here. All these are related to funding," he said.
These ups and downs notwithstanding, the Rector said, management of the academy has tried to define for the institution, a mission and vision.
"The first thing is to sensitize the stakeholders on the importance of this institution in the economic scheme of things in this country. It begins from the acknowledgment of the importance of the academy, then every other thing falls in place," he said.
According to Mr. Ebong, this step has worked for the academy as they did not fold their hand to lament the situation they found themselves when they took over the mantle of the academy. What the institution did was to start exploiting their mandate of training manpower effectively especially in the oil and gas industry. This paid off as Mobil Producing, Shell Petroleum, NLNG and others bought the idea of the academy training their staff locally instead of spending huge foreign exchange for foreign training.
The sensitization drive did not end with the oil and gas industry, the academy had to approach Education Tax Fund of the need to fund the institution. This, the Rector said, paid off also as ETF supported the institution in many projects. Also, financially healthy parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Transport, the Nigerian Port Authority, the Shippers Council and the Nigerian Maritime Authority supported the institution.
Twenty-five years of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, especially in the last four years has witnessed a tremendous leap in its achievement. In fact, at all fora, the rector, Mr. Ebong had always boasted that, the academy is one of the best equipped in the world.
Other things that make the academy unique, the rector said is the caliber of teachers. "We have at least four master mariners on the teaching staff, four chief engineers, five years ago it was not possible because we found if difficult to attract these categories of professionals, but we approached government and requested for special facility provision to attract them. This is called the professional seaman allowance and we add this on top of their take home pay, to make it more attractive," he stated.
The Federal Government, he said, has procured from Norway items of simulator equipment worth more than N250 million and the National Maritime Academy has been directed to build a befitting jetty for the academy. To still enhance the number one status of the academy, the federal ministry of Transport has signed a memorandum of understanding with Malaysian government for the training of the academy" cadets on the one year mandatory sea going vessel.
The academy at 25 is laying solid foundation to achieve its mandate of training manpower for the maritime industry as it is not working with allied industries.
According to the rector, in November 2003, NLNG sponsored five members of the academy staff to the United Kingdom for specialized training. Besides, the company in the past seven years, employ every year, an average of seven ex-cadets of the academy and currently has more than 15 ex-cadets of the institution in its employ.
As the academy shifted the ceremonies that would have ushered in the 25 years of the institution to the first quarter of 2005, Mr. Ebong said, that a fully developed maritime sector can generate employment and means of living for 10 million Nigerians directly or indirectly. Besides, the sector can generate foreign exchange earnings three times what the country is getting from oil today.
The school which within the 25 years of its existence has graduated 3,000 cadets, as of today, has its director of specialized seaman training as an ex-cadet of same institution and two other principal lecturers
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