Seafarers have been at the centre of continued attacks orchestrated by pirates. These attacks have not only put several lives at risk but have also impacted the investment climate in the maritime sector.
As in land routes, insecurity in Nigerian waters and the entire Gulf of Guinea has been like a growing wound that has continued to fester.
Consequently, Chinese ships have been directed (by who?) to step up their vigilance in the Gulf of Guinea as part of efforts to check the menace of pirates.
A spokesperson to the Chinese Ministry of Transport, Wu Chungeng, on October 30 said that the ministry had established ‘an ad hoc working group’ to lay down a series of precautionary measures to ensure the security of ocean-going vessels and seafarers, according to reports from Lloyds Maritime Intelligence.
Wu stressed that Chinese-flagged vessels ‘should further enhance precautions against piracy’ when sailing in the Gulf of Guinea.
China is one of the largest exporters of goods to the African region from where it also imports raw materials such as crude oil.
A seafarer, Bob Yousouff, who said the attacks had not affected him directly, narrated a few accounts of colleagues who were dealt with by pirates.
He said, “I don’t think I want to experience it but people closer to me have the experience. One of my friends even got shot. Luckily, they were able to take out the bullet and he is walking fine. The captain and other crew were kidnapped. They paid a ransom before they were released.
“There are incidents of piracy; there are one of two incidents like that, just like the air or road. However, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Navy needs to do more.”
Timeline of events
Several chains of events have occurred on Nigerian waters showing the growing rate of insecurity in Nigeria.
On July 2, a global ship owner, BW Offshore, reported a pirate attack on its oil production vessel offshore Nigeria at 4:20am local time. It said nine Nigerian nationals were kidnapped. According to the report, the vessel was situated on the Okwori field in Nigeria under contract to Addax Petroleum at the time of the assault.
Another attack occurred on July 17 in the Gulf of Guinea where eight armed pirates 196 nautical miles southwest of Bayelsa boarded a tanker and held hostage all crew members, stole the tanker’s documents and valuables and kidnapped 13 crew members before escaping.
The tanker was left to drift with unqualified crew onboard before a nearby merchant vessel rendered assistance to the tanker, making sure it sailed to a safe port.
The frequency of these events has led the International Maritime Bureau to declare Nigeria as one of the riskiest places to do business.
IMB in its 2019 Piracy and Armed Robbery against ships report showed that Nigeria recorded 166 attacks on ships from 2015 to 2019.
The nation recorded 14 attacks in 2015, 36 in 2016, 33 in 2017, 48 in 2018 and 35 in 2019.
Bulk carriers, products tankers, tankers and containers were most susceptible to attacks, according to the report.
The report ranked Apapa, Bayelsa, Brass, Bonny Island, and Port Harcourt pirates as the hot spots.
It said, “Pirates, robbers are often well armed, violent and have attacked/robbed ships/ kidnapped crews along/far from the coast, rivers, anchorages, ports and surrounding waters.
“In the past, incidents reported up to about 170nm from the coast. In many past incidents, pirates hijacked the vessels for several days, ransacked the vessels and stole cargo, usually gas oil. Several crews were also injured and kidnapped in these incidents.”
The report said Nigerian waters were risky and urged vessels to be vigilant as several incidents had gone unreported.
Agencies efforts
Director-General of NIMASA, Bashir Jamoh, in July expressed displeasure with the spate of criminality on Nigerian waters and promised to bridge the gap by taking inventory of the needed apparatus to ensure safety on Nigerian waters.
He added that the bad image had made Nigerians pay a war risk insurance premium on every import.
Jamoh said, “There is a very serious crime in our waters which made the international community declare Nigeria as the most dangerous place to trade in terms of shipping thereby making us pay war risk insurance premium which every individual in Nigeria is paying because we are an import-dependent country.
“Since we are an import-dependent country, whatever we import, we have to put in a ship. And if we put it in a ship, we have to pay war premium. What is paid from the United Kingdom to the United States is half compared to what we pay from the UK to Nigeria. This is so worrisome.”
The DG informed journalists of the arrest of 10 pirates which boarded a Chinese vessel on May 15, off the coast of Côte d’Ivoire and directed it towards Nigerian waters.
He disclosed that the pirates were arrested by the Nigerian Navy, which dispatched a ship to intercept the vessel after it got an alert.
The pirates were later tried under the implementation of the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences Act signed into law in June 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
International reports
Latest reports from the international bodies have shown that more work still needs to be done.
In 2019, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that between 2015 and 2017, the total economic cost of piracy, kidnapping and armed robbery at sea incurred by all stakeholders involved in countering these activities, including Nigeria, was $2.3bn.
According to a report from the International Maritime Bureau, piracy and armed robbery increased by 40 per cent in the Gulf of Guinea during the first nine months of the year.
Most affected were seafarers who suffered attacks from pirates wielding guns and knives off the West African coast, it noted.
So far, 132 attacks have been reported since the start of 2020, up from 119 incidents in the same period last year according to an October 14, 2020 report titled ‘Pirates are kidnapping more seafarers off West Africa’.
Of the 85 seafarers kidnapped from their vessels and held for ransom, 80 were taken in the Gulf of Guinea – in 14 attacks reported off Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Ghana.
Losses
Vice-President of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents, Kayode Farinto, said it was hard to estimate the losses suffered by importers.
He said, “I may not be able to quantify the amount of loss but it is a very huge amount. We need an insurer to do that.
“However, it is sad to note that the coast of Guinea up to our inland waterways is not secure. Part of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency’s responsibilities is to secure the waterways. It needs to cooperate with the Navy.”
He said, “We are not too happy about this. We are losing money and the confidence of our importers who believe this should not happen on our waterways.”
Director-General of the Importers Association of Nigeria Special Taskforce on Anti-Smuggling, Chijioke Okoro, said the loss was in the region of N1.9tn.
He said, “We lose billions of naira and it is not small money. Our members are losing a lot of money. From what we have seen, we have lost N1.9tn for this year alone, you understand.
“The last one that happened recently, before Navy could reach them, they succeeded in doing what they came for. They are very smart.”
He noted that the pirates attack any vessel that could lay hands on.
Chijioke said, “In some cases they kill people a lot. At a time, we stationed some of our men in the water but they attacked and killed a few of them. It has been a very big problem and we hope that the government does more.”
He said piracy was a revolving cycle. He said even though a few pirates had been caught, new groups had emerged and continued to inflict harm on ships.
The way forward
Yousouff called for the establishment of more checkpoints.
He said, “What we need now is that at any given time, we will have a stationed post that will monitor the waterways. If they patrol the coast, they can reduce these incidents. The government knows what to do.”
Recalling an incident in Dubai where a robbery occurred, Yousouff explained how the assailants were caught within three hours. He called for relevant agencies to be provided with adequate gadgets to be able to rescue victims on time.
A former master mariner and expert, Thomas Kemewerigha, gave some of his experience thus.
He said, “For the association I belong to, we have experienced four attacks within two months, ransoms were paid plus or minus to get them received. If we can get them and try them, it will reduce.”
He explained that the re-occurrence of this matter in the Gulf of Guinea was due to the failure of security agents to curb it. He added that Nigeria’s coastline required the services of a coastguard as the largest in the sub-region.
He said, “The sea robbers do not come from heaven, they come out from the creeks to the open sea. We have about 23 to 24 entrances from Badagry to Calabar.
“The Navy should be able to put installations that check everyone coming from the creek to the high sea to the point that the local fisherman should have his boat searched. That is a major problem we have today.
“All maritime states of the world – states living close to the Atlantic like America, Russia, Japan, India, UK, Canada, Australia, Netherlands – all have coastguards. If countries like America, Japan have coastguards to complement the functions of the Navy, then it is not out of place for Nigeria to have a coastguard.
“The coastguard is expected to be an offshoot of the Nigerian Navy. The act that establishes the Nigerian Navy says to protect the territorial waters of Nigeria against aggression but the coastguard is to monitor obnoxious movements within the waters.”
Kemewerigha argued that some youths of the Niger Delta had been engaged in piracy and the best way to solve the problem for good without any cost was to create a coastguard that would employ the youths.
He said, “A creation of a coastguard will mean employment, and will enhance security. Some youths of the Niger Delta engage in some of these piracy attacks. They are engaged in kidnapping people and the bottom line is that they are unemployed and are contracted by politicians who use them for political gains.
“They arm them. They use this arms to wreak havoc. By the time, a coastguard is established, it will absorb them to monitor the same territories they are disturbing.”
The mariner noted that hiring the experienced pirates as coastguards would guarantee them a future and a better life.
Punch
