The Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside, called the Nigerian judicial system to make sure that dispute resolution on maritime cases are treated urgently. He emphasized that the poor dispute resolution mechanism on maritime cases is keeping investors away from Nigeria.
According to him, the maritime sector is able to generate as much as one million jobs, but there are no investors willing to invest due to the slow nature of the justice system. For this reason, Mr. Peterside urged the judges to treat maritime cases with timelines.
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In addition, the Director-General informed that the anti-piracy bill will establish a robust framework to punish piracy and other unlawful acts in the Nigerian maritime sector. It will also give further expression to relevant provisions of the international maritime conventions on maritime security to which Nigeria participates.
In fact, NIMASA has already ratified 40 Conventions of the IMO and the ILO on maritime safety, maritime labor and maritime environment management, and 19 of these conventions have been domesticated.
NIMASA is now workings towards ratifying six IMO conventions more, before the end of 2019. This aims to make sure that Nigeria as an IMO member state meats its treaty obligation.
For his side, Director General of Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) represented by Prof. Emmanuel Okon commented that the majority of challenges in the maritime sector have to do with enforcement and this mainly lies with the judicial system of Nigeria.
