Maritime workers lament unsafe state of Bayelsa, Rivers waterways

MEMBERS of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) have lamented the unsafe state of the inland waterways between Bayelsa and Rivers States, calling on the recently deployed Deep Blue maritime security to shift focus towards the nations inland waterways and not just the coastal waters.

Recall that five MWUN members were rescued five days after being kidnapped on the waterways between Bayelsa State and Rivers State.

Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune exclusively, a Trustee of the Union in Rivers State, Comrade Waite Harry, lamented that since its launch about a month ago, the presence of the Deep Blue maritime security assets had not been felt in the inland waterways between Bayelsa and Rivers State.

According to the MWUN Trustee, I have been lamenting for months now over the state of insecurity along the Kula-Abonema waterways. Kula-Abonema is a boundary waterway between Bayelsa and Rivers State. That route has been rendered almost un-navigable by pirates and sea robbers.

They stop passenger boats at will and whisk away people into the creeks. Many who have been able to raise funds to meet their (pirates) demands have lived to tell the story while so many others who couldnt have been killed and dumped into the lagoon.

When we complain to security agents here in Rivers, they will tell us that their only concern is the oil and gas platforms located offshore along particular spots on the waterways. The security agents here only go to these oil and gas platforms to secure them. For passenger boats traversing this route, many are on their own in terms of security.

Thank God the recently abducted eight, which included five of our members, have been rescued. Others have not been that lucky. If not for the noise that MWUN made, I am sure the incident wont have received the best of attention from maritime security agencies.

I will urge the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agencies (NIMASA) to direct the Deep Blue maritime security to the inland waterways, not just our coastal waters. Our inland waterways are very much as important as our coastal waters. We need to secure our waterways or else, it will ruin the gains of the Deep Blue maritime security.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) had recently given credence to Nigerias efforts in combating piracy in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) including the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure also called the Deep Blue Project of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

This was contained in its recently released second Quarter (Q2) 2021 report on the global reduction of piracy in 27 years in Nigeria, including the GoG region. The IMB report notes that the number of kidnappings in the Gulf of Guinea in the second quarter of 2021 is the lowest since Q2 of 2019. While 33 incidents of piracy were reported in the last quarter of 2020, five cases were reported in the second quarter of 2021.

The IMB report also noted that the number of kidnapped crew in the region also declined from 50 in the last quarter of 2020 to 10 in the second quarter of 2021.

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