By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) on Monday graduated 235 seafarers, 52 Higher National Diploma with 183 National Diploma Cadets in various courses and tasked them on patience and humility.
Speaking at the Passing Out Parade, the Rector of the Academy, Commodore Duja Effedua (Rtd) charged the graduating Cadets to be disciplined wherever they go, adding that humility is a good virtue they must portray.
“When you want to be great, start accepting and move on when you fail. You don’t have to succeed everytime you try something but when you fail, you must struggle to continue. We all have a purpose and your purpose in life is that you want to be a seafarer and you are here by God grace.
“So no matter what happened to you, your motivation should be your purpose, books just start and end now but purpose is ongoing. If you know you want to be a great Seafarer in Master Maritime or Chief Engineer somewhere, no matter what happens to you just hang on because there is another killer which is pride, ego, you think you are too much.
“You don’t want to learn; humility opens all doors, when you go anywhere, please open your ears, your eyes, be ready to learn but when you are arrogant, you will enter problems, you might get fired. The next one is patience, you must exercise patience, nothing last forever, nothing comes easy, we are the architect of our own destiny.
“You must see challenges as you go, you must face them, you must identify them and respect them not just chicken out and pack out because you feel the problem is bigger than you. Impossible should not be in your dictionary for now, keep trying until you get it,” he said.
The Rector, however, stated that the academy run some special courses, which the Cadets usually pay for but with the new management, the Cadets participated in those five courses free of charge.
He added that they don’t have to come back to enroll in any of the courses.
According to him, all the graduating students are now members of the Nautical institute in UK for the first time in the history of the school, noting that the academy paid for them.
He said that eight foreign professionals in Master Marina with 58 young Nigerian professionals would be on ground to train Cadets with the new acquired stimulator.
Effedua commended the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, for turning the academy to a world class institution that can compete with other maritime academy in the world.
He said that when he came onboard, he met infrastructural deficit in the academy, which he was able to resolve by blocking all the leakages in the academy, adding that it’s not that they got any additional funding to be able to achieve that.
