On March 22nd, 2024, the new Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr. Dayo Moberola assumed duties at the Kanti Towers( now NIMASA Towers), the new ultra-modern headquarters of the agency.
He was pronounced the new helmsman of the rich government parastatal on March 11th, 2024 by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to replace Dr Bashir Jamoh, whose four-year eventful tenure lapsed on March 10th, 2024.
As expected, the former Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority(LAMATA )boss was elated by his new office and status.
He said this much when he expressed his enthusiasm to become the new NIMASA DG.
“ It is with great enthusiasm and a sense of purpose that I step into this position” he had said with a glowing mien when he took over the baton of leadership from Mr Chudi Offodile, the Agency’s Executive Director, Finance and Administration, who had been acting since the exit of Jamoh.
It is expected that Dr Mobereola should be elated given the fact that he now sits atop an international-inclined, money-spinning government agency which is by far bigger in status, stature and scope than LAMATA.
However, we want to advise Mobereola not to be carried away by the euphoria of his new office and position as he is faced with the daunting task of driving the most critical, dynamic and highly technical agency which is by far more tasking, engaging and challenging than LAMATA.
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He should also know that he is in an industry that is international in operation and whose operators are cynical but discerning and sophisticated in thoughts and actions, who are unsparing in their criticism, who are impatient with laggards and who are quite friendly and supportive of intelligent, proactive and impactful Chief Executive officers of the frontline regulatory agency in the industry.
The industry whose stakeholders are intoxicated by successes but incensed by failures.
So Mobereola should know what he is up against as he is stepping into the big shoes vacated by his predecessor, Dr Bashir Jamoh, whose modest achievements have now set parameters by which his performance shall be assessed.
Such parameters include but are not limited to shipping development, CVFF disbursement, full deployment of the agency’s floating dock, change in Nigeria’s fortune at the IMO elections where the country has become a serial loser, the proactive approach to the controversial National Seafarers Development Programme(NSDP).
Cabotage Vessels Financing Funds(CVFF)
Mobereola is coming into the office to meet one of the most controversial, highly politicized and brazenly abused interventionist Programmes of the agency, the Cabotage Vessels Financing Funds (CVFF).
Initiated in 2003 through the Cabotage Act, it is meant to empower indigenous ship owners to enable them to compete effectively in the Cabotage trade.
The fund is the accruals from the two per cent deductions made from Cabotage contracts of indigenous ship owners.
The special purpose loan facility is meant to be disbursed to qualified beneficiaries who meet the stringent guidelines.
Instructively, the funds have not been disbursed 20 years after it started. and it is said to have accrued the sum of $700milion as at 2023.
It has suffered several abuse and postponements of disbursement dates and become an object of official deceit and controversy so much so that the indigenous ship owners for whom it is meant have lost hope and confidence in government sincerity.
Under Jamoh, who appeared genuinely sincere and committed, the funds came close to disbursement as it got two presidential approvals under President Mohammudu Buhari, first to Rotimi Ameachi and then in December 2022, to Muazu Sambo, both former Ministers of Transportation.
Sambo even had to stake his integrity on the disbursement of the controversial funds when in December 2022, he bragged “Hold me responsible if this funds is not disbursed. I am staking my integrity on the approval granted by Mr President”
We need not say that the funds were still not disbursed before he exited.
We went into the intrigues and opaque manner in which the vexed issue of CVFF disbursement had been handled for 20 years so Mobereola would know the task at hand.
If he could eventually break the 20-year-old jinx of CVFF disbursement before he leaves office, he would become an instant celebrity among the highly sceptical stakeholders who have already written him off as a misfit before he even assumed duties.
Nigeria’s Serial loses at IMO Category C elections
Another parameter that will be used to measure the performance of the new NIMASA DG is how he would turn the fortunes of Nigeria around at the International Maritime Organisation(IMO) elections.
Since 2007, when Nigeria last won the election into the Category ‘C’ council of the IMO under the former NIMASA DG, Dr Ade Dosunmu, it has been A string of consistent loses after then.
Since 2009 till date, Nigeria’s bids to win the coveted position at the IMO have been met with crushing defeats and near-misses.
The country became defeat-weary so much that it chickened out of the 2023 biannual elections when it failed to participate in the election held in the London headquarters of the IMO in December 2023.
Gboyega Oyetola, Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, who led other government officials on a jamboree visit to London in 2023 to observe the election which Nigeria ought to have participated, said Nigeria will not participate in that year’s election to give ample room for preparations for the 2025 edition.
Mobereola, with the active support and guidance of the minister, should leverage the giant stride made by his immediate predecessor towards this direction.
Jamoh has built international goodwill and made the government invest in robust maritime infrastructure which engender maritime security and safety.
It behoves the new helmsman at the agency to harness all these and deliver to Nigeria a place in the prestigious category C at the IMO Council.
If he does that in the next council elections in 2025, then some of his critics, especially in the maritime media, would be falling over themselves to confer on him the Maritime Man of the Year Award reserved for the performing CEOs in the industry.
Full deployment of the agency’s floating dock.
Again, his immediate predecessor, Bashir Jamoh, had prepared a ground for the eventual deployment of this national asset.
NIMASA acquired the giant floating dock in 2018 at the staggering sum of N50 billion in what appeared that the agency put the chart before the horse as it searched for a suitable operational base for six years while the facility was idling away and gulping national resources.
