Oil thieves have been discoveredo be renting indigenous ships to commit crimes on Nigerian waters
The Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has sounded a strong warning to indigenous shipping companies to be careful while chartering their vessels out as oil thieves have been discovered to be renting indigenous ships to commit crimes on Nigerian waters.
Director-general of the agency, Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi, gave the warning while speaking on “Nigeria’s Maritime Security Realities,” at the inauguration of the newly elected executives of the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) held in Lagos on Thursday.
Akpobolokemi, who was represented at the occasion by the agency’s deputy director, maritime safety and seafarers standards, Captain Warredi Enisuoh, warned indigenous shippers organised under the aegis of the Indigenous Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (ISAN) against the increasing cases of piracy within the Nigerian waters and admonished them not to be carried away by money while chartering out their vessels to other shippers.
He noted that the pirates, who now adopt high technology in carrying out their nefarious activities, also go as far as chartering vessels belonging to genuine and unsuspecting indigenous shipping companies and use them to rob other vessels
He however regretted that the indigenous ship owners in their desperate bid to make money, fuel the activities of these pirates even without knowing it, citing a case in which one of the pirates came to the office of one of the indigenous companies and chartered one of its vessels and used same for piracy attacks.
He said, “It should be sounded now that the agency will not sit and watch the indigenous ship owners fuel piracy knowingly or otherwise. They must ensure that the full identity of those chartering their vessels must be established and documented.”
He disclosed that what gave the pirates, who used the ship to rob other tanker vessels of her content, was that the name of the vessel was not removed from the body, which brought about the argument that a genuine ship owner would not use his ship for such a criminal activity with her full name on her body.
The director general, who also warned the ship owners of the habit of throwing caution to the wind in preference for money no matter where it comes from, argued that most of them were going into the business because the laws are not properly enforced, which he described as dangerous for the system.
Source: Leadership
