The appointment of Bashir Yusuf Jamoh as the Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA), the maritime agency has seen improvement in service delivery in recent years, a development that industry stakeholders attributed to his transformation programmes, which have got the Agency noticed globally.
This is according to the views of maritime stakeholders across the country. The stakeholders said that since his appointment in March 2020, the D-G’s programmes have positively improved every department at NIMASA.
A major success of the current administration at NIMASA is the Deep Blue Project, which was Nigeria and NIMASA’s response to the frightening level of insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea.
According to the United Nations (UN) Security Council Report for November 2022, which sourced its data from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in 2020, 81 piracy incidents, out of 195 globally, happened in the Gulf of Guinea, which also experienced a high rate of kidnapping.
According to IMB, in 2020, 130 crew members were kidnapped in 22 different incidents, representing 95 percent of such cases globally. It further stated that about $5 million were paid as ransoms annually to the kidnapping gangs terrorising the Gulf of Guinea, with direct and indirect effects on trade amounting to $1.925 billion.
However, with the ingenious response from NIMASA, the cases of piracy and kidnappings were reduced, attested to by the Security Council.
The Security Council report further stated that, “The situation has shown possible signs of improvement. Piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea declined, from 81 in 2020 to 34 in 2021. Kidnappings also fell to 57 last year, though the Gulf of Guinea nonetheless accounted for all kidnappings at sea worldwide in 2021″. The IMB attributed the improvement to the increased presence of international naval vessels and cooperation with regional authorities. In the first six months of 2022, there were 12 reported piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea and no crew kidnappings”.
Under Bashir Jamoh’s watch, NIMASA has been commended by international observers for the progress being made in the country. Captain Brian Lisko, of the US Department of State, praised the organisation and the Nigerian government for the reduction of criminality in the Gulf of Guinea. Another positive development while Jamoh is at the helm of affairs at NIMASA is the disbursement of N16 billion and $350 million under the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, (CVFF).
Also, the agency now has a befitting Head Office. The new edifice was commissioned in November 2022 by the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Kitack Lim, adding that the laurels were won by Jamoh as the Head of the organisation.
The Agency, under Jamoh, was recently honoured by the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), with the “Corporate Organisation Award”, for the organisation’s exemplary records of tax compliance.
A professional-par-excellence, Bashir Jamoh holds a Ph.D. in Logistics and Transport Management from the University of Port Harcourt; a Master’s degree in Management from the Korea Maritime and Ocean University in South Korea, as well as an Advanced Diploma in Management from the Bayero University, (BUK), Kano. He also holds a Professional Certificate in Materials Management from the Institute of Logistics in the United Kingdom and a Diploma in Accounting from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
Jamoh has attended different management courses at the Said Business School, Oxford University, UK as well as the Institute of Public Partnerships in Washington DC, USA. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Transport and Logistics, Chartered Institute of Administration of Nigeria, and Institute of Maritime Economists (Canada).
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) was established to make Nigeria the leading maritime hub in Africa with safe, secure shipping and cleaner oceans. Nigeria is bordered in the south by the Atlantic Ocean with about 800 kilometres of coastline. This is an asset that no country will joke with.
