The Nigerian Navy has concluded the legal framework to establish a joint task force with the navies of the Gulf of Guinea countries to tackle sea piracy.
The task force will be launched as part of activities marking the Presidential Fleet Review 2023.
The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo represented by the Chief of Policy and Plans Rear Admiral Saidu Garba disclosed this to journalists on the NN Presidential Fleet Review (PFR) 2023, with the theme: “Fleet Readiness for National Prosperity” scheduled to hold from Friday 19 to Monday, May 22, 2023 in Lagos.
He said, “Although one or two issues of piracy may have crept up, I want to assure you that none of these happened in Nigeria’s maritime domain.”
Gambo said the task force will be conducted along the Gulf of Guinea.
The CNS said the forces will be about information sharing and cooperation at sea in order to get a proper architecture to fight maritime criminality on the Gulf of Guinea waters.
“For the security of the entirety of the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) and that is why we want to bring our counterparts in the Gulf of Guinea to set up this task force in order to bring most cases of piracy to an end. In the last two years, you hardly heard cases of piracy in the GoG, all thanks to the NN surveillance capabilities, the use of our maritime domain capabilities to not only monitor activities in our maritime domain but also beyond to our neighbours. So, we know that the future will be very bright for us through engagement with our colleagues from across the GoG.
“We’ll set the ball rolling for a more secure GoG. We are also going to use this instrument to form this task force, it has provisions for logistics and funding by all nations involved just like AU, ECOWAS and MNJTF. The responsibilities are going to be borne by all the nations involved. There is a broad arrangement in place which is derived from AU.
“Last year 2022, we had a preliminary arrangement with heads of the navies and Coast Guards of the African continent which gave birth to this initiative which we are going to consummate during the Presidential Fleet Review 2023. It is not going to be another Nigeria Father Christmas arrangement,” he said.
