By Godwin Oritse

NIGERIA may experience a shortfall of about 96,000 seafarers in its maritime sector by 2026 if urgent measures are not taken to correct an observed manpower imbalance in the service.

Giving this warning at the 2024 Lecture Series of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria Oron, Akwa-Ibom State, titled, “Addressing Human and Institutional Capacity Development in Nigeria’s Maritime Sector Through Stakeholders Partnership”, a maritime expert, Capt. Konni Duniya, expressed concern that the country will suffer a huge shortage of adequate and competent seafarers in the coming years if the manpower gap created as a result of war, retirement and disruptions in the sector is not urgently addressed.

Duniya, an alumna of the premier maritime institution, blamed the situation on domination of Nigeria’s Maritime sector by seafarers of foreign countries, issuance of fraudulent Certificate of Competency, CoC, lack of database to validate cadet’s education, training and experience.

She, therefore, called on the Federal Government to organise frequent training for existing seafarers and develop capacity building programs for incoming ones with the use of emerging trends and technologies.

She stated further: “Nigeria is the only country with unemployed seafarers in the world despite the cabotage law which seems to have been poorly implemented and shortage of seafarers globally. There needs to be proper housekeeping in NIMASA to combat issues of see time and license forgery through the use of block chain and cloud computing.

“There is the need for Nigeria to market her seafarers to the global market alongside the signing of MOU like Ghana, South Africa and other countries are doing.

“Nigeria seafarers are left to their fate battling poor wages, welfare and living conditions within Nigerian waters while alternatively accepting lower positions outside Nigerian waters which does not give room for consistent career growth”, she said.

“The Maritime academy of Nigeria is currently positioned to compete globally in terms of standards”, she said while urging the federal government to provide the enabling environment for the school to achieve the aims and objectives of its establishment as it relates to seafarers’ training and license issuing.”

Mr. Eric Umezurike, Managing Director, First Rit Nigeria Limited, said that Nigeria Seafarers should not be languishing without jobs while their foreign counterparts enjoy better job placement and welfare.

Umezurike, who is a freight forwarder, noted that the best way out of the present quagmire is for the federal government to establish a national carrier based on Public, Private Partnership so that maritime student graduates can be deployed after graduation to have sea time experience.