The Nigerian Government announced a major milestone in the fight against insecurity, stating that no major pirate attack has been recorded in Nigeria’s waterways since the last quarter of 2021.
This comes as Nigeria ended the year 2020 as the global hotspot for international piracy, which saw the FG launch countermeasures including the Deep Blue Project.
This was disclosed by Dr. Bashir Jamoh, DG Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency (NIMASA) in a press briefing on Thursday.
What he said:
Jamoh stated that Nigeria was able to eradicate piracy in its waterways through the implementation of the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure in Nigeria, a.k.a “Deep Blue” Project, launched in 2021 by President Muhammadu Buhari to secure Nigeria’s Gulf of Guinea Area.
Jamoh also noted that the entire Gulf of Guinea is experiencing a total eradication of piracy, citing no attacks have been witnessed along the Gulf since March.
“From the first quarter of this year to date, we have not recorded a single accident or incident on our territorial waters in terms of a piracy attack. From the last quarter of 2021 till date, it’s over a year now, no single attack.
“This has led to the cancellation of the stigma placed on Nigeria as the most dangerous water in the world and the country was removed from the piracy list for the first time in March 2022.’’
“What we did was to establish what we call Joint Industry Working Group; to open up our system to the international community and we told them that Nigeria is not the only country where there is insecurity or piracy but they always point to Nigeria only.
“Through that group, all stakeholders in our own industry now meet every month to discuss the progress of maritime insecurity in Nigeria and the entire Gulf of Guinea.
“We now have an agreement between NIMASA, Nigerian Navy, and the International Coordinating Centre at Yaounde, Cameroun, so that we can address issues that have to do with maritime security.
“So by extension, in the entire Gulf of Guinea, we have not had a piracy attack since March,” he said.
He noted that the Nigerian Government introduced the Deep Blue Project, where they had to buy a number of platforms, citing that The president of Nigeria inaugurated the platform of the project, which has made Nigeria proud and many nations are coming to see how we manage our maritime security.
What you should know
Nairametrics, in a report released in July 2021, showed piracy in the Gulf of Guinea fell to its lowest since Q2 2019, in the last quarter. IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) reported the region led globally with 32% of all reported incidents and accounted for all 50 kidnapped crew and the single crew fatality recorded during the first half of 2021.
In October 2021, the International Maritime Bureau (IBM) reported that global piracy cases dropped to the lowest level since 1994. The Gulf of Guinea region recorded 28 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the first nine months of 2021, in comparison to 46 for the same period in 2020, with the Nigerian area recording only 4 related cases for the same period.
