…As Ship chandlers, industry watchers plead for restraints***
The Nigerian Navy may have arrested not fewer than 26 vessels and 70 persons over various offences within the Lagos maritime domain in the last eight months.
The outgone Flag Officer Commanding (FOC), Western Naval Command, Rear Adm. Obed Ngalabak highlighted this on Tuesday Daji, said that the arrest was made possible with the support of naval personnel and other security agencies.
“All these arrests are made possible because of the normal directives of the CNS,” he said.
Ngalabak expressed confidence that the new FOC would continue to sustain and improve on the successes of the command, for the betterment of the navy and the country.
In a swift reaction however, some industry watchers and ship chandlers in Lagos have pleaded with the naval authorities to exercise restraints in the current wave of arrests of Nigerian ships, pleading that the job of navy is to protect Nigerian territorial interest and not to retard its economy.
“If these people continue at this rate, hardly would Nigeria have any ship still plying its waters in the next two years”, indicated a ship Chandler in Lagos in a telephone call,
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The stakeholder who spoke on conditions of anonymity in Lagos explained that while the importance of the presence of the Nigerian navy especially in terms of security can not be over emphasized a situation where vessels crew in operations would work with fears as if they are in another’s country leave much to be desired.
He recalled a particular case of vessel Chandler was to deliver a supply of consumables to, only to arrive with the delivery and discovered that the vessel had been arrested.
An industry watcher who also spoke on conditions of anonymity urged the nation’s ship owners to find a common ground of understanding with the navy, to enable them evolve a synergy that would benefit Nigeria rather than an inexplicably tense environment where any vessel could be arrested on mere suspicions of wandering.
