Stakeholder Advocates Swimming Training For Seafarers

The need to train sea
farers, marine operators and marine security personnel on practical swimming techniques  has been advocated.
A stateholder in the maritime industry, Mr. Martins Alamina-Babbo, made the  call in an interview with our correspondent in Port Harcourt.
Alamina-Babbo said it is no longer a secret that most security personnel  of the Marine Police and the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Puolo Shield in the Niger Delta as well as some in Navy patrol boats were never trained  on practical  swimming  techniques in case of any eventuality on  the waterways or creeks.
He also expressed  worry that some  graduates of maritime institutes in Nigeria were  not practically trained on swimming as a safety measure, before they were awarded  certificates.
According to him, it is also more worrisome that most seafarers and dockworkers were not trained as well on safety techniques like  swimming, and frowned  that such untrained mariners risk their lives incase of any accident or boat mischarp.
The stakeholder noted that there is always  a problem with those without technical knowledge in swimming whenever they had an emergency situation either  while chasing  pirates, smugglers or oil bunkerers on the waterways.
Alamina-Babbo reiterated that having a technical knowledge in swimming  would go a long way to save lives  and to protect themselves  during  distress  situation, and that as a marine  Engineer, appealed to all mariners to embark on one form of training  in swimming in-order to safe their lives and others in-case of difficult situations.
He also called on the Rivers State Government to construct  more  swimming pools or reactivate the only one at the Alfred  Diete Spiff Civic Centre, in-order  to help train all categories of people on the techniques of swimming.

Collins Barasimeye