From Femi Oyelola
A Nigerian Navy General, Rear Admiral Victor Adedipe has said, that the navy cannot independently fight crude oil theft and other crimes in the Nigeria’s maritime domain, hence the need for synergy between the force and other stakeholders.
Admiral Adedipe who is also the Director, Department of Maritime Warfare in Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji, Kaduna State stated this during the Policing Seminar for Junior Course 78/2014 at the college.
“The constitutional role of the Nigerian Navy to police the nation’s maritime domain and to ensure that, the maritime environment is conducive for economic activities is a continuous and often difficult one for the service to perform alone. This is particularly so due to the enormity of responsibility of the Nigerian Navy to the nation.
“This poses a serious challenge to our force planners and calls for synergy between the service and other friendly key players in the sustenance and improvement of a secured maritime environment”. He said.
According to him, “it is a fact that, the Nigerian maritime environment is richly endowed with living and non-living resources.. However, these resources and other commercial activities in the maritime environment have been subject of consistent threats which could jeopardize the revenue generating capacity and economic well being of the nation.
Declaring the seminar open, the Commandant of AFCSC, Air Vice Marshal John Chris Ifemeje expressed optimism that, valuable contributions and suggestions would emanate from the seminar to add value to the security agencies’ policing efforts in Nigeria’s maritime domain.
The theme of the biannual seminar was; “Multi Agency Cooperation in Nigeria’s Maritime Domain: a Panacea for Enhanced Maritime Security”.
