Lagos -The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) says it will ensure speedy passage of the Piracy Bill in the National Assembly to aid the prosecution of maritime offenders.
NIMASA’s Director of Shipping Development, Capt. Warredi Enisuoh, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Tuesday.
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
He said the agency had also strengthened its collaboration with some countries toward eradicating all forms of crime on Nigerian waters.
“A couple of years ago, we sponsored a Piracy Bill and I am not too sure at this particular point in time the stage at which that particular bill is, but I know that there are some official things going on in the background.
“That is just to also assist courts to prosecute those caught or those found wanting.
“However, we have strengthened our operations in the sense that we collaborated heavily now with foreign countries as well as foreign navies, foreign partners.
“As you know the Nigerian Navy is heavily involved with the African partnership. So is very, very active on it.
“All these things are being put together to ensure that practically we eradicate all types of crimes on our waters.
“We increase our patrols, we also have a 24-hour surveillance system that monitors our waters and I think this has put a lot of the perpetrators in the negative gear if I may put it this way.
“Why I say negative gear is that the forms of crimes we used to see, like ship theft, when ships is stolen from the anchorage and then taken out is all gone.
“The siphoning of oil is gone; boarding of ships and taking them away to unknown destination is all gone because of the partnerships we have even through the Abuja MoU.“
He said NIMASA was working closely with the Joint Task Force (JTF) and local communities to gather information that would support efforts at ending robbery at sea.
Enisuoh said NIMASA had no power of arrest but could detain a suspect.
According to him, interagency collaboration can ensure that suspects are arrested, detained and prosecuted. (NAN)
