By Chiazo Ogbolu
Lagos – A Marine Engineer, Daniel Ikueyemi, on Saturday urged the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to address the issue of discrimination against the Nigerian Seafarers’ Certificate of Competence (COC).
He made the appeal on an Instagram live programme organised by Mrs Ezinne Azunnah of the MaritimeTvNews, entitled, ”Seafarers’ Certificate of Competence: Quality and Opportunities”.
The Certificate of Competency (COC) is a form of licence every mariner is granted to work on ships.
The certificate ensures that the concerned person has the sufficient knowledge and skills to sail on ocean-going vessels.
According to him, our COC is not strong enough and the issue of discrimination of the COC is a common thing for us.
He added that to ensure that the discrimination stopped, there was the need for NIMASA as the regulator to strengthen the security of the COC to standardise it and prevent it from being forged.
“Other ways to tackle the issue is to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with some African countries to ensure seafarers utilise their COC.
“There is a notion that 60 per cent of what is taught does not correlate.
“There is need to check this notion and also look into the curriculum that are being used in the country’s maritime academies,’’ he said.
Ikueyemi also pointed out that the feedback mechanism that existed did not capture seafarers’ experience at sea.
He urged NIMASA to have a plan from point of training to point at which seafarers were employed so that their trade would be harnessed.
Also Capt. Ola Alufa, a Marine Captain and Consultant said that the restriction of the country’s COC had not given seafarers the opportunity to be utilised globally.
According to him, Nigerian seafarers are faced with limitations as regards categorisation and that should be expunged.
Alufa suggested that Nigerian seafarers should be well-employed everywhere and be able to work in vessels.
“The limitation is the categorisation. We do not have trading vessels and we need them now.
“NIMASA has tried as regards the curriculum, experience and examination which is very tough. It is of international standard, we need to encourage our own certificate,” he said
He recommended that the Ministry of Transportation must work hand in hand with NIMASA to write to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to expunge the clause affecting seafarers.
“A lot of seafarers have not yet gone on board a ship before. They just got the certificate from schools but there is no opportunity and this still bounces back to government on the need for training vessels.
“The vessels will give seafarers the experience and certificate to be recognised worldwide,” he said.
(NAN)
