21/09/2017

Arms shipment: Security expert bemoans Nigeria’s maritime security arrangement •Says repairing failed scanners will lead to congestion



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...A maritime security expert, Mr Gbenga Leke Oyewole has decried the poor arrangement of Nigeria’s maritime security at the nation’s ports, saying such lopsided arrangement fueled the effrontery of arms importation into the country. This is even as the former presidential aide also advised the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) not to repair the broken down scanners, but should rather buy new and more modern ones.Speaking to Nigerian Tribune exclusively, Oyewole, who was Senior Special Assistant on Maritime Affairs to former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, said no importer in his right senses will even think of importing arms to countries like United States of America (USA) or the United Kingdom because of their well structured maritime security policy.

According to Oyewole, “These  weapons could have come from anywhere, but as a nation, we must evolve a very stringent policy to guard against such dangerous imports from coming into our country. Government at all levels should put in place machineries to know what leaves or comes into our country.“We thank God that the Customs intercepted the 1,100 arms recently at Tin-Can port, but who knows how many of similar containers that may have gone undetected? Our scanners are not working at the ports. How long has it taken us to make effort to buy new scanners?
“Have our leaders thought of elements in Niger, a landlocked country, bringing in arms through Nigeria? Niger does not have maritime access; they could be exploiting our lopsided maritime security arrangement to bring in arms imports.
“In the ports, we have the Customs, the State Security

“These are areas government needs to look into and come up with strong and very effective strategies. It will take extreme effrontery for somebody to say he wants to imports arms illegally into the USA because their maritime security over there is well coordinated.“In the ports, we have the Customs, the State Security Service (DSS), the Navy and the police; all maritime security agencies of government at the ports. When these  agencies of government get security report of harmful movement of cargoes or persons within and around the port premises, they all take their information back to their respective headquarters. There is need for a port security coordinator who coordinates these agencies, and ensures there is a central information pool at the ports.
“We thank God for the seizures, but do you know how many come into the country through trans-shipment offshore our waters? Do you know how many come in through the unauthorised routes like our very porous jetties?”
When reminded that the Customs Comptroller General, Col. Hameed Alli (Rtd), during the seized arms display, promised to repair some of the collapsed scanners, Oyewole warned that such action could lead to congestion at the ports.
In his words, “As a former Senior Special Assistant to the Presidency on Maritime Affairs, I was privileged to know the capacity of those scanners at the ports, even before they eventually broke down. The question is how many containers can those scanners scan in one hour?
“I will rather advise the Customs hierarchy to work towards getting new scanners because repairing those failed scanners will only amount to congestion at the ports. Those scanners does not have the capacity to scan enough containers per hour, so there will be congestion.

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