Daily Independent (Lagos)
Andrew Airahuobhor
4 February 2010
analysis
The managing director of Genesis Worldwide Shipping, Emmanuel Iheanacho, is worried. His worry stems from the branding of Nigeria as a sea pirate-prone country, a situation, which has made business very difficult for ship owners.
According to Iheanacho, his company had a tough time recently when it went to take delivery of a ship in Gibraltar. They paid through their nose just to secure the services of the European crew that sailed the ship into Nigeria because the country is regarded as a high-risk area and the crew had to charge outrageous premium to sail to the country.
He said the Europeans did not accept explanations that the report about Nigeria was not as it seems, saying that "The consequences was that we were blacklisted and that we continue to pay huge amount of money to get a service which could have cost us a fraction of what we paid at that time."
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) ranked Nigeria as second only to Somalia, on the incidence of sea piracy in the world, which has made it very expensive for ships to sail to Nigeria.
Ship owners have argued that the IMB report on Nigeria may not entirely be correct because the incidents on Nigerian waters are just armed robbery and cannot be classified as pirate attacks compared to the cases recorded in Somalia, where pirates hijack ships with sophisticated weapons and demand for ransom running into several millions of dollars.
Also, most of the cases IMB reports in its piracy reporting center are robbery attacks against fishing trawlers alleged to be selling their catches at sea, which is said to be illegal.
The robbers are allegedly attracted by the huge cash onboard the fishing vessels through tip offs by either from the crew or the prostitutes some members of crew patronise.
In January 2009, 50 cases of attacks against trawlers were reported, resulting in 10 deaths. Incessant attacks caused the Nigerian Trawlers Owners Association (NITOA) to call its fleet of over 200 trawlers back to the shore for a period.
Speaking on the IMB reports on Nigeria, Iheanacho said, "Every time that they say that Nigeria is a country that has high rate of piracy incident, I am absolutely amazed because I used to be a seafarer for so many years. I just wonder what the pirates are looking for because pirates in Somalia are going to hijack a whole ship, these are proper pirates and then they are going to collect huge amount in ransom but Nigerian pirates, what are they trying to do? Are they going to get a meal on board or to get a drink? I don't understand it.
"This issue about Nigeria being the second isn't possible because piracy existed in malacca straits before even the Somalia's took it over. The malacca strait piracy was proper piracy when they actually boarded the ship with grapnels and guns and took things and even hijack the ships. Then the Somalia one developed, what about the Nigerian one how many times have they hijacked a ship and ask for ransom?" he queried.
"Have you ever been outside bar? I can take you outside bar when it is rough and if I take you for that ride and somebody proposes to you that you are going to board a ship just to rob people of their wrist watches and risk your life, you would not do it.
"I am so mystified by these piracy attacks that people talk about all the time. I am saying that when you look at the motivations for these criminal activities or piracy, if you look at Somalia, you know why those guys go there because it is big money. If you arrest a ship and drag the ship away then you start negotiating with the owners and then they cough out about $20 million. In the Nigerian case, I don't know of any one ship that has been hijacked.
"But I think that the problems we have on Nigerian waters are so complex that what we are seeing is a situation where they have lumped up all these different problems and say they are pirates.
"The people who go onboard fishing trawlers by the way, I have heard rumours but I cant validate it that some of these people who work in the fishing trawlers continue to sell some of their catches offshore, and if they sell these catches offshore they keep the cash onboard and that then create a situation where people know that there is cash onboard and the same people who came to buy these fishes are the ones who go and attack them.
"So those fishing trawlers are supposed to bring their catch into port, now they are selling it and collecting money onboard the ship, are they not putting their life at risk? This is because they create a situation where people now know that money is onboard the ship.
We also have a situation with regards to what is happening in the Niger Delta, which you will agree is more or less a political issue than an issue involving pure pecuniary motives. So, I think that there is a lumping up of all those things; Hijacking of ships in the riverine areas in delta, hijacking of ships in the Port Harcourt area, those are more like political action and if you don't separate them, they continue to add up to this impression that Nigeria is like Somalia and I don't think that there is any way you are going to start comparing Nigeria with Somalia at all.
"These report give us a very bad name and make life very difficult for Nigerian ship owners. If people are attacking fish trawlers and taking their money and killing, we have to condemn it and I think that we really have to appeal to the authorities to put appropriate measures on ground to deal with those issues. So we condemn all those who attack fishing trawlers but we also similarly condemn those who work onboard fishing trawlers and continue to sell products illegally offshore and create the incentives for these thieves to go and attack.
While proffering solution to the issue of piracy and sea robbery, Iheanacho pointed out that resources be provided for the Nigerian Navy as way of curbing the incidents of piracy on Nigerian waters. is for resources to be provided for Nigerian navy to establish floating operational stations and increase their presence at sea, which he said is not difficult to do.
"If you have a floating base and which support the availability of a number of fast patrol craft, then I don't think why they will not be able to contain the incident of any pirate that might be operating in Nigerian waters," he said.
He added that Nigeria will not continue to have these problems if it has Automatic Identification System (AIS) device that track all ships that are around. "It is entirely possible that the efficiency of the Nigerian navy in curbing the incidence of piracy could be enhanced if we have people like the American navy for instance to organise proper training programmes, establish a presence out there and draw up a protocol for interdicting some of these boats."
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