90-day ultimatum to Nigeria to improve security
According to WorldStage Newsonline, the United States of America government has issued a 90-day ultimatum to Nigeria to improve security in its ports and waterways or face a ban on ships from entering the country.
Speaking in Lagos at the opening of a two day General Stakeholders Conference on “Reviving ISPS Code Implementation in Nigeria” on Monday, Mr. Olugbenga Leke Oyewole, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Maritime Services, said due to measures that came up after September 2011 incident in United States, Nigeria cannot be exonerated from the activities of terrorists.
As he stated, the country will revive its implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security code by August to secure ports and waterways against terrorism, piracy, smuggling and bunkering.
Meanwhile, NIMASA and other maritime stakeholders had called for the implementation of International Ships and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code.
Mr. Ziakede Akpobolokemi , Director General, NIMASA, while giving the welcome address, said “different responses to the increasing wave of global terrorism have been adopted by nations across the world and solutions have been and are still being fashioned out for different sectors. The one which most concerns us today as stakeholders in the maritime community, is the protocol put in place by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), in the form of the ISPS Code, to ensure that the global maritime arena is free from the threat of terrorism and other maritime crimes.”
Akpobolokemi, Speaking further said the insistence on better standards and other improved security measures may in the short term impose some level of financial burden on port facility operators and other stakeholders but the measures we shall be prescribing will in no doubt augur well for you and the Nigeria’s maritime industry in the long run.
“The gains of a nationwide compliance with the ISPS Code are immense and serve as an anaesthetic for any short-term discomfort that our implementation agenda might cause in the interim. On the flip side, the risks of non-compliance with the ISPS Code are frightening and given the threats our nation faces from the growing menace of global terrorism and other maritime crimes, non-compliance will prove disastrous,” he said.
Source: World Stage News
