The Merchant Marine Training Academy, controlled by the Merchant Navy Directorate has said that the academy has graduated professors and masters degree holders on maritime security.
A statement made available to The Tide by Secretary of the Academy, Capt Alfred Oniye, said the academy was set up with the aim of bridging knowledge gap in Nigerian cadets especially in marine intelligence and business intelligence.
The academy which is headed by a Rector, retired Navy Capt Abel Ogah Oniye, described the institute as a professional institute where some of the students who have already finished from one maritime institution or the other are assembled for greater knowledge. 
The rector said, it is a shame for a maritime nation like Nigeria to send its cadets outside the country to acquire certificates.on maritime activities.
Capt Oniye decried a situation whereby today, a certificate of competency obtained in Ghana is more powerful than what is issued in a maritime nation like Nigeria.
According to him, “When we say we want to revamp the Nigerian economy, few of us that are experts cannot do it alone, so what we did was to set up a training institute in collaboration with a foreign university, we called it a citadel of knowledge where we can impart knowledge and raise giants that would revamp the Nigerian economy.
“The basic reason for setting up this institute and affiliate it outside Nigerian university we are still going to do, but for now, we want to build the reputation from outside the country, but our major responsibility is to raise giants that would believe in this country and revamp the Nigerian economy through the maritime industry. Our core value is collaboration; we are ready to collaborate with any existing agency.
“At the present, we have not started navigation or engineering courses, the area we are focusing on is maritime security, marine intelligence and business intelligence, and these are the areas the sector is seriously lacking, if our waters are secure, investors would come in, he said.”
Capt Oniye, who did not disclose how many students bag bagged Professorial  and Masters degrees, said that one of the objectives of the merchant navy directorate was to set up a world standard training institute which was what it was doing now.
“What we run here is American standard, we don’t take more than 16 people in the class, it is an executive class as ”Foreigners have dominated Nigerian waters because the indigenes do not have enough knowledge about the waters.” He said
“So, we decided to bring that knowledge that is outside to this place. Ask the students who have finished from here, in this school we have graduated professors, in the last batch, we had professor among them, we have PHD holders who are captains among our student, I cannot tell you the amount of master degree holders that we have trained in this institution, we want to make them understand that the industry is still fatal and is untapped, this industry controls 90% of Nigerian economy but it is untapped” he