Maritime: Shippers reveal why Nigeria lost IMO council seat

President, Shippers Association of Lagos, Rev. Jonathan Nicole, has insisted that maritime sector issues made Nigeria to lose a bid to secure a seat in the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Council.

Nigeria on Friday lost election into Category  C of the IMO, after years of failed efforts to rejoin the elitist group of maritime nations since it lost re-election bid in 2011.

The new members of Category C are Bahamas, Belgium, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and Vanuatu.

Those who joined Nigeria as losers are South Africa, Kuwait and Peru. The new entrants are Vanatu, Qatar and Saudi Arabia

Winners in Category A are China, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States.

Winners in Category B are Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and United Arab Emirates.

This move have sparked reactions from stakeholders in the sector and Nicole during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday voiced out his opinion.

According to Nicole, insecurity is tarnishing Nigeria’s image, noting that in spite of huge presence of the government with war ships in the Gulf of Guinea, pirates were still operating

Nicole urged the Federal Government to urgently resolve the issues which, he insisted gave the sector a bad name.

“Trading platform is almost militarised, shippers are porous, fishing industry is threatened by pirates.

“All these are issues that need to be resolved by the government.

`’We have to make sure that all the aforementioned issues, including  intimidation of key service providers, should be eliminated in our maritime industry,” he said.

Nicole also urged Nigeria to carry out a thorough conflict resolution toward getting the support of Francophone countries, adding that the closure of Nigeria’s border might have made it to lose support of Francophone communities.