Expert Advises NIMASA On Seafarers Training

A Mariner, Capt. Dennis
Osah, has urged the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to give more attention to training of seafarers at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) in Oron, Akwa Ibom.
Osah told our correspondent in Lagos yesterday that the academy should be the first institution to be considered by NIMASA for the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP).
He said that the academy deserved to be adequately equipped to train cadets to have sea-time experience and to acquire the needed international standards.
Osah, who is the first President of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM), said that “all things being equal, the MAN should be at the heart of the development programme for the Nigerian seafarers’’.
The mariner commended the initiative of NIMASA in sending cadets abroad under the NSDP, but insisted that the MAN, Oron, must be given the needed attention by the Federal Government.
“It is a welcome idea from NIMASA and other partners who now send cadets abroad for training, but our own MAN must get the first and quality attention which it deserves.
“MAN remains our home institute for training of seafarers and it has to measure up to international standards,’’ Osah told our correspondent.
He said that a number of the vessels working in Nigeria had foreign nationals because the MAN training was limited in scope without the practical aspects.
“If our maritime academy has capacity for practical sea training, those being sent abroad will be trained here and they will be qualified to take up the available jobs,’’ the mariner said.
He said he would always speak on the need to revive the national shipping line, considering the importance of such an organisation in the training of seafarers and growth of the industry.
“I started my cadet training with the Guinea Gulf Lines before going to the Nigerian National Shipping Line and then becoming a master mariner.