By Elizabeth Adegbesan

The Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Bashir Jamoh, has been named winner of the 2020 Zik Prize in Public Policy.

Making the announcement yesterday in Lagos, the Chairman, Selection Committee of Zik Prize 2020, Professor Pat Utomi, said the capacity of Jamoh to have extensively managed the restructuring, reformation and repositioning of NIMASA earned him the prestigious award.

Utomi stated that the Deep Blue Project and the Blue Economy initiatives which Jamoh “continues to champion have brought massive gains to the Agency and the nation’s economic diversification goals.”

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The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), in its second quarter 2021 report, had disclosed that piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, which had in recent times become the global epicentre for sea piracy, fell to the lowest since Q2 2019 after Jamoh started enforcing the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure, also known as the Deep Blue Project.

Aside the NIMASA boss, two other illustrious Nigerian technocrats that also won the 2020 Zik Prize in Public Policy include; Dr Akinwunmi Ayodeji Adesina, the 8th elected President of the African Development Bank Group.

Adesina was also a former Minister of Agriculture of Nigeria, who the innovative electronic wallet system that he introduced ended 40 years of corruption in the fertiliser sector.

Mallam Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, will also join Jamoh and Adesina to receive the 2020 Zik Prize in Public Policy.

Vanguard News Nigeria