President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has created a new ministry he called the “Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy”. In your estimation as a father figure and guru in the maritime business sector, what is your candid opinion about this ministry?
I don’t see anything different in that ministry. Blue Economy is a concept, you can give it another name. The maritime industry has been there for a very long time going through terrible setbacks because you’re not bringing in experts, it’s not the name, the industry cannot move forward. If you say blue economy, one of the key things you have in the maritime sector all over the world is the driving force, that driving force must be things the indigenous operators use to expand their scope. We have it in this country but we’re not using it, you just go and start designing things you see from other countries and you say blue economy; what is blue economy? The economy can be blue when you start to implement the laws.
Look at NIMASA, they brought this blue economy issue. When you look at blue economy they will tell NIMASA it can bring N500 billion and all the rest. There are critical things, NIMASA has two components, and so all what it’s doing is just publicity. When you look at Sections 16 and 17 of NIMASA Act the maritime fund is there for indigenous operators. But look at the indigenous operators, they’re doing nothing. If you look at the Cabotage fund, if you look at Cabotage since it was established in 2003 up till now nothing has been done. So, you have a backward country that is just talking and nothing is moving. You cannot talk of blue economy when you don’t have indigenous operators. Where is the flagship? Where is the national carrier? All these things are in the NIMASA Act. Ninety percent of the NIMASA Act which is talking about the blue economy has not been implemented. So, what is NIMASA job? NIMASA’s job is to grow indigenous operators, not to do all these seminars; come and sit down and talk, no. These issues are critical. When we’re talking about blue economy; how do you bring it out? You’re bringing a man who was the governor of a state to come and run the blue economy, you’re bringing a man who you are going to tutor, who you’re going to teach because most of the people who are coming there are politicians. In another three years you will keep teaching them because they’re strangers in the industry, so you’re going to be working with people who are novices in the industry. And, who are going to be directing that man? They’re the people who have made so many mistakes in the industry. So, you find out that all these things cannot work when you have politicized everything.
If you look at the people who have been appointed in the maritime industry, many of them are politicians, and you don’t expect anything better to come out from them because they have their own interest. You must balance politics and professionalism so that the country can move forward. Nobody is saying that politicians cannot be there, but you must know where and where you put professionals so that they can grow the industry.
What exactly do you mean by indigenous operators?
When you talk about indigenous operators you are talking about ship, the ship expansion programme which is the law. Now, where is your ship? Where is ship building? NIMASA is there to do all these things. Okay, tell me what NIMASA has been doing over the years, tell me one single thing NIMASA has done. It’s just this publicity thing, and because you get cheap money, you call people, you talk. That is not why NIMASA was set up.
But recently NIMASA said it put thousands of seafarers on board vessels…?
(Cuts in) What is seafarers? NIMASA’s main job is to build the indigenous operators. Seafarers are just by the way, but we’re talking about capacity – content and capacity to be able to have ships. How many ships do we have? In whose ships do you put these seafarers? When you look at the NIMASA Act, it is talking about fleet expansion. Where is NIMASA implementing that? Nothing, and they are collecting money; NIMASA collects more money than NPA, they collect money more than customs; what are they using the money for? NIMASA was set up since 2007, but up till now nothing has been done. Now you’re talking about the blue economy, it’s not about changing the name; do you have what it takes to run a blue economy? You just sat down and begin to bring things out, we cannot move on like this as a nation; you must get your experts to drive the process. The politicians can be doing their own thing, while the experts can be doing their own.
An expert, Dr Bashir Jamoh, is now heading NIMASA…?
(Interjects) Jamoh is not an expert, Jamoh is a politician. How did they bring him into NIMASA? Was he working in NIMASA?
Yes! He rose through the ranks to become Director General
When we say expert; who was Jamoh before he came to NIMASA?
He worked in various departments at NIMASA
That is what I am saying. When you talk about the maritime sector, it is a technical field. Can you mention five maritime experts in this country? Call them.
We will mention Lucky Eyis Amiwero first
No, leave Lucky Amiwero. Call another person (laughter), that’s what I’m telling you. It’s not about working here or working there, but you must develop yourself to be an expert.
Who is an expert? An expert is one who can identify where the problem lies and he can tell you fix this one here, that one there, and things begin to work if you do. You can have a PhD yet you are not an expert. You must build content and capacity to drive the process of anything you’re going to do. If Jamoh is an expert, he is supposed to have changed the system in NIMASA. If you look at the NIMASA laws, the NIMASA laws are not what they’re implementing at NIMASA. It is not about seafarers; seafarers are the simplest thing in the NIMASA Act.
The laws of NIMASA, look here (flaunting and opening the Act), this is NIMASA Act. Section 16 says, “Agency shall provide not less than 25 percent of its revenue for the maritime fund, and not less than five percent of its revenue for the Maritime Academy”. When Dakuku Peterside was there as the Director General, this thing I showed him but he said no. But I said to him, ‘read it’. When he finished reading it I said to him, ‘Go back and read it; who are the people who are supposed to have this fund?’ If you look at the laws, the agency may apply money from this fund for the development of indigenous shipping and shipping infrastructures in Nigeria. Where are they developing the shipping? Did they mention seafarers there? It is for the development of shipping infrastructure, have they developed anything?
America has close to 17 subsidies, I told Mike Ahigbe and he said it was lie. And these are some of the people that created the problem of this Cabotage. But he later came to confirm to me that what I said was true. If you look at Section 1(1) the object is to promote the development of indigenous commercial shipping, that is the object of the NIMASA Act.
What of the Ship Building and Shipping Acquisition Fund?
Has it been given to you?
No
Has it been given out since after how many years?
Now, you have pointed out the rot in the system. What is the way forward?
They need to bring in experts. You cannot go forward if you don’t know what you’re doing. Those people running the industry now are politicians. When (Olusegun) Obasanjo came into power, he constituted committees to restructure the country. I served in about 99 of those committees. I don’t know whether you were at the Nigerian Shippers Council hall with Ojo Maduekwe when (Isa) Yuguda had to call me from Abuja and said, ‘if you’re not in this committee we would dissolve it, if you’re not there we would not have trust in it’. He said these white men are there but you are the one to challenge them. That committee was what brought about most of the things you see today at KLT (Kiri-Kiri Lighter Terminal, Lagos) and all of that. I served in 168 government committees, nine of them were presidential committees and one customs committee. So, I’m not talking like an ordinary person in the industry. Tell me any other person that has that kind of pedigree in the industry, nobody. They cannot discuss anything professionally, what they discuss is politics but our country is going down and our children are going to suffer it. Our wealth is being pushed far from this country to Togo, Benin Republic, Niger, Chad and they take decisions. Look at the decisions the former CG (Comptroller General) of Customs took; his decision has destroyed the economy of this country- a man who is not qualified, a man who has never seen customs before, but you gave him appointment and said he is CG. Who is (Col. Hameed) Ali? He was just a Colonel in the Nigerian Army, a Colonel is just an equivalent of an Assistant Comptroller of customs. Customs is a procedure, it’s not for novices, customs is not university graduate, no, there are procedures to run customs.
Ninety nine percent of customs officers don’t know their job. NPA (Nigerian Ports Authority) for now, in fact, the people there don’t understand what they’re operating, you have General Managers all over the place; what is NPA known for? Contracts. They said they are running concession but what they’re running is a lease. There is no concession in the country. And these things have been there just for selfish interests. Is that how other countries are run? I just came back from the National Assembly fighting for the Customs Act. Look at the kind of Act, one of the most useless Acts in the world.
Even the new customs Act?
Yes! This particular One is the worst of all full of duplications. Who is (Senator) Abejide? He is the one whom they gave money to do all those things. There was no public hearing, and nobody is talking. If I have not written about that Act, nobody will say anything and it will just go like that. Look at the Central Bank (CBN) coming to take over customs work, telling you that they want to do price verification. What is Central Bank? I was a member of the Central Bank Committee.
So, when we’re talking about experts, we’re not talking about people who are being sponsored by government. We cannot continue to run this country like that. Today, I am 70 years but I’ll continue to fight on. I’ve been in Abuja for nine months fighting to make sure that bad laws are not passed. People just make policy for their own selfish interests, not for the interest of the masses. Look at Ghana, Ghana changed their laws in 2015, its Customs Act. Look at the law they changed. Can any customs man talk where I am talking in this country? Tell me, which of them? I was appointed to reform customs.
So, these are the problems we have. When they wear their uniform you see them doing all these things; let them come out. They put Sani (Nuhu Abubarkar) and Okoro in the (Reform) committee. An expert is one who can tell you where there is fault and where there no fault.
This issue of giving the Nigeria Customs revenue target on yearly basis; how does it go with trade facilitation and national security?
You don’t give customs (revenue) target. At least I have been in government, government does not give customs target they just give them-because they’re revenue agency just like the FIRS. They’re revenue agencies, their function is to mop up revenue for the Federal Government. But the problem of Customs target is that Nigeria is still a 1949 country because nobody talks about revenue in customs all over the world. What they talk about is trade facilitation and security, especially security.
The Safe Framework or Standard to facilitate trade is the concept that was developed, it’s a convention or do we call it protocol that brought about the scanning and all the rest, because we have two of the pillars-pillar one and pillar two that is, customs to customs, customs to business, customs to government, just like areas where you intervene for trade. Look at our process of inspection, it’s the worst in the world because we don’t know what is coming into our country. So we allow things to come into our country anyhow. I have written to inform government about this but the government is not interested in anything. It was just only Obasanjo government that was interested in our letters. Every letter that we wrote during Obasanjo government received a reply. You don’t run a system whereby you don’t know what is coming into your country. Look at America, America has what they call “Container Security Initiative”, that’s why you don’t have anything about insecurity there except school children shooting themselves. America has 81 countries where their customs officers are located. You can’t push American cargo into America without American customs first inspecting them at the country of origin, and America also has what it calls “The Rule of 12/2”. That rule says that before your container goes on board the ship you send information to America about what your container is carrying. Then they have the “Sea Pact”. That one is the validation of process. All these things are what American Customs use in securing their country; which one do we have here?
This current Customs CG (Adewale Adeniyi) should know that he’s no longer a PRO (of the Service). What I should advise him is to sit down first and plan because there are many things done that are not in order. Some of the changes he’s making are supposed to be made by the (Customs) Board. He’s supposed to sit down, articulate his position and come out with something better. Customs are not police, customs are not immigration, customs are not prisons. Customs means import and export. When you see, “Customs and Excise Management Act”, it means import, export and manufacturing.
When you talk about revenue target, customs are revenue agency and a procedure agency. But because the Nigeria Customs focus is on how to generate revenue they kill many businesses and that’s why many businesses are leaving this country. The presidency introduce policies, the Finance Ministry regulates, the Board directs and customs implement.
