Igbo Youth To Benefit From Nimasa’s Training

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) ,has concluded arraignments to train youths from Imo and Abia States  as their counterparts in the South – South region.

The agency has received an approval from the National Assembly to train Nigerian youths to become competent and qualified seafarers in various universities across the world, so as to fill in the existing knowledge gap in the maritime sector.

Director-General Nimasa, Patrick Akpobolokemi, who disclosed this while receiving delegates from the Ohaneze Ndigbo recently in his office, assured that the seafarers’ training programme, targeted at complementing the Niger-Delta Amnesty Programme of the Federal Government, will also be beneficial to many youths from South-Eastern region.

The Nimasa boss who assured the Ohaneze that his administration would protect the interest of the Igbo’s in the agency, also solicited for the cooperation of Igbo people in sanitising the Nigerian Waterways, improving maritime security and creating friendly business environments for private sector investors in the maritime  industry.

According to him, the training of Nigerian youths including Igbo’s will enable indigenous ship owners to change the situation of the maritime industry, by ensuring that shipping business including trade within the nation’s coastal area is dominated and taken over by Nigerians.

Earlier in his opening remarks, the leader of the delegation, Chief Chukuemeka Ezeife, who is also the former Governor of Anambra State, hinged the trust of their visit on the need for the management of Nimasa to accord support and cooperation to Calistus Obi who is the newly appointed Executive Director, Maritime Labour and Cabotage Services of the agency. Ezeife who expressed no doubt in the competence of Obi in discharging his responsibilities in the agency towards moving the industry, noted that several development has been recorded in the recent time to erase the old notion that maritime sector used to constitute major problems in the country.