– 

Dakuku Peterside, director general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has urged Nigerians to partner with the agency to ensure a virile maritime industry as the its activities impact on the lives of all Nigerians. This is given the fact that virtually every product used by Nigerians comes through the Sea and NIMASA is the government Agency saddled with the responsibility of ensuring seamless and secured sea transportation, without negative impact on the environment.

The director general made this call during a breakfast meeting with media stakeholders held in Lagos. He said that the essence of the Agency’s continuous interaction with the media was in recognition of the role they play in information dissemination and in educating the public. He charged them to be professionals to generate sufficient and accurate information on issues to advance credible and reliable reportage to elicit public trust.

He also urged them to use their platform to educate the public on the activities of NIMASA, stating that it would create awareness on the akgency’s strides to advance the maritime industry for the growth of the Nigerian economy.

Peterside said that the present management of the Agency which was given the mandate of restructuring, repositioning and reforming the maritime sector by President Muhammadu Buhari through the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has taken strategic steps to ensure that the mandate is achieved in line with the Administration’s change Agenda. 

He said to ensure that “our mandate is achieved, we developed a medium term strategic plan with five pillars viz; Survey, inspection and certification transformation; environment, security, search and rescue transformation initiative; Digital transformation strategy; capacity building initiative and cultural and structural reform”.

He noted that the steps taken are yielding results and this is evident in the reduction of piracy and other sea related crimes in the Nigerian territorial waters.

Dakuku also stated that the Agency is in the process of rebranding and that the New NIMASA brand would be unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on the April 20.  This would coincide with the meeting of the Association of African Heads of Maritime Administrations to be hosted by the Agency in conjunction with the International Maritime Organisation, IMO, in Abuja from April 19 – 21. He said with the hosting of the event, Nigeria is set to become a leading voice in the comity of maritime Nations especially as the country seeks election into the category C of the IMO Council seat in November 2017.

Responsing, Charled Kalu, chairman of the Association of Radio News Managers,  commended Peterside for his achievements within a short time of assumption of duty, he said that as a pressure group, meetings of this nature would help them during their reportage. He also appealed to the director general to look for avenues on the various media platforms to reach out to the public, a statement signed by Isichei Osamgbi

It should be noted that NIMASA was established by the merger of the defunct Joint Maritime Labour Industrial Council, JOMALIC, and the Nigerian Maritime Authority, NMA, in 2007 to regulate shipping and shipping activities as well as promote indigenous participation in shipping. 

— Feb 28, 2017 @ 9:33 GMT  

|