Foreign Vessels’ Deployment Of Armed Guards In Nigeria’s Waters Alarming – Analysts

Maritime analysts have raised the alarm over the activities of armed guards employed by foreign vessels in Nigerian territorial waters.

LEADERSHIP reports that only the Nigerian Navy can legally bear arms in Nigerian waters.

According to maritime lawyer, Dr Emeka Akabogu, in a report titled “ Legal Limits of Armed Guards on Board Ships,” the possession of a firearm—without a licence from the Nigerian president or the Inspector General of Police, unless the individual is in the armed forces—is prohibited in Nigeria.

In the report, Akabogu disclosed that licensed private guard companies may provide guard services but cannot carry arms during their duties, saying the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), as a regulator, cannot bear arms.

“Although NIMASA’s statutory mandate includes maritime security, it cannot carry arms and must rely on the Nigerian Navy under an inter-agency collaboration agreement to provide security for enforcing its mandates,” the report says.

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However, Maritime security experts have accused foreign vessels of employing armed guards who are also shooting at local fishermen on Nigerian coastal waters.

The security experts who accused the vessels of illegal and unregulated fishing in our coastal waters said they shot at people they presume are pirates or sea robbers.

For instance, foreign trawlers who allegedly engaged in illegal fishing reportedly opened fire on local fishermen along the Akassa coastline in Bayelsa State recently.

Fishermen from the Akassa community were operating along the continental shelf and shallow waters of the Atlantic Ocean when the foreign trawlers attacked them.

Speaking on the incident, a lecturer at the Maritime University, Charles Okerefe, said the act is illegal.

“These are some things we’ve been clamouring for over time. You know, the streamlined duty in our security system in our waters. And you begin to wonder what the Nigerian Navy is doing, even the Marine Police and all of that are doing. So, this is why those calling for the Coast Guard will continue to raise their voices. People are saying that our security personnel on the waters are very lax,” he said.

In other words, he said their focus is different from actually policing the nation’s waterways, and it is unfortunate.

According to him, foreign trawlers coming to fish in the nation’s waters ought to be arrested, detained, and their vessels seized, and the illegal operators should be subject to appropriate sanctions and punishments.

“But what do we have? Did you hear of anyone being arrested? So, how is it possible that for territorial waters as huge as those of our own in Nigeria, there are no security personnel to quickly respond to such attacks by foreigners? It speaks volumes about how porous our security architecture is on our waterways.

“And I think it will be a wake-up call also for the government to do something about it. Because one, their activities are illegal, number one. And two, to have the effrontery to come and shoot at locals who are doing their normal business is even more illegal, which has to be arrested by the force of our security system on the waterways,” he said.

Also speaking, a maritime security expert and former Senior Special Assistant on Maritime Services to ex-President Goodluck, Leke Oyewole, said it was an absurdity of the highest order for a foreign trawler to come within the nation’s territorial waters to shoot at the citizens of this country.

Oyewole said that the foreign trawlers’ actions were most likely illegal and absurd of the highest order.

“And do you blame them? I blame it on our surveillance system. I blame it on our poor monitoring of the coast. I blame it on people who would not do the needful at the right time. And I also blame it on most of the maritime agencies.

“Because, to start with, there is what is called notice to mariners. If any foreign vessel is coming to Nigeria, it should have announced its intention months ahead, weeks ahead, and daily when it’s very close. Did anybody receive such an alert notification from that vessel? And if somebody received it, what was the advice to that vessel?

“If nobody received it, what is the name of that vessel today, and who is trailing it, who is tracking it? It belongs to which country? What have we done to notify the country that has the flag? Or anybody can just come, kill our citizens, or even kidnap and go away, in addition to taking our natural resources free of charge.”