The first President of Ni
gerian Association of Master Mariners, Capt. Dennis Osah, recently called on the Federal Government to consider reviving a national shipping line.
Osah said this was necessary to serve as a practical training facility for seafarers, while it would also be doing business.
He told newsmen in Lagos that the Nigerian cadets needed sea-going vessels for practical training.
Osah said that the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in Oron, Akwa Ibom, could not train the students in practical lessons because the country did not have a national shipping line.
“If our maritime academy has capacity for practical sea training, those being sent abroad will have been trained here and that would have saved Nigeria the foreign exchange spent,” he said.
Osah said he started his training as a cadet with the Guinea Gulf Lines before he went on to the Nigerian National Shipping Line before he progressed to become a master mariner.
‘Today, there are no ships carrying the national flag. It is a big problem because we lack capacity to train cadets and engineers,” he said.
Osah said that the foreign shipping companies that came to trade in West Africa had the interest of the countries they visited at heart to train their candidates.
“This interest made them to ensure that their candidates for maritime training had opportunities to be trained in their ships.”
Osah said it was painful to see that all these opportunities had gone with time, especially now that Nigeria no longer had a ship carrying the national flag.
“The solution is to start afresh by having a new national shipping company even if it means going to the public to have its shares sold.
“The Federal Government has the capacity to begin to buy ships in which the mariners will work and trade, bringing foreign exchange to the country.
“But if there are fears about a national shipping line not becoming sufficiently commercially viable, then privatisation can come in like it is being done with the ports concessions,” Osah said.