… as 29 Akwa Ibom sponsored cadets complete training

By Godfrey Bivbere

THE Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has said that it will send about 250 cadets of the National Seafarers Development Programme, NSDP, for sea time training before the end of the first quarter of this year, Q1’19.

Dakuku Peterside

This is even as 29 cadets of the programme, last month, completed their sea time training through sponsorship by the Akwa Ibom state government.

The 29 cadets are indigenes of Akwa Ibom who were amongst the 700 originally sent to The Philippines by NIMASA for the first part of their training.

Speaking at the unveiling of the 2019 -2020 projection for the maritime sector in Lagos, the Director General of NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside, said that the training of the 250 cadets was part of the agency’s effort to build human capacity for the sector.

Peterside also said that NIMASA was doing all it could to ensure all those who graduated from the scheme were duly enrolled on ocean-going vessels within the shortest possible time.

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Confirming the sea time training for the 29 Akwa Ibom state cadets, one of the Filipino cadet graduates, Sunday Onyiakeke, told Vanguard Maritime Report that the state governor himself took the training of the cadets personally from start to completion.

In his words, “They are 29 or there about. The state governor himself sponsored them to The Philippines to continue their programme and they have just graduated.”