Train Qualified Seafarers That Can Compete Globally-Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation, Rt. Honourable Rotimi Amaechi has tasked the management of Maritime Academy of Nigeria(MAN) to look beyond building infrastructure and train Seafarers that can compete globally.

Amaechi said this on Monday, May 6, 2019, during the commissioning of some of the completed projects at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria,  in Oron.

He said that the academy should employed academic staff who are willing to stay on campus to give the cadets proper training, stating that the academy can’t be compared with the maritime school in Egypt and Ghana.

According to him, the academy lacks proper organisation and leadership, not lack of money but the application of those resources.

“We need academy staff, when it comes to academy staff, they are  not here, there is nothing you can pay me that will make me leave in Oron, so you need to ensure that you encourage people to come and leave in Oron to teach.

“ And to encourage them, their take home pay must be interesting, if you can’t pay them outside what the civil service is paying, you can put allowances here and there that will encourage both foreigners and local lecturers to come.

“The next thing to do is to train your staff, get them to do masters degree, to do PhD paid for by the academy, in that case they won’t leave here immediately, this is to enable us have qualified seafarers.

“ We were established almost the same time with Egypt school, we are not near them, we are not even near Ghana. What we lack is organisation in leadership, I don’t think this school lacks money.

“I think money for now, is not your problem because you have NIMASA to fund you, you have the federal government budget to fund you, it is the application of those resources that is the problem,” he added.

Earlier, the Rector of the Academy, Commodore Duja Effedua (rtd) said that the minister saved the academy from collapsing.

He said that his administration inherited projects that were abandoned for over 16 years and had to complete such projects to make the environment conducive for the cadets.

According to him, “the academy was purchasing training equipment that will enable the cadets get proper training that can make them compete globally.

“ The honourable minister must be thanked for saving this academy from total collapse, during the 2017 world maritime day, stakeholders raised  great concern about  the falling standard of training in this academy.

“In his wisdom he set up an audit  committee to review the performance of the academy, which afterwards were made an interim management committee for six months.

“ We met a lot of challenges, especially from the communities, we had to make them realise that it was a government academy and not for the Community.

“ When we came, we don’t know the number of staff on the payroll, so we had to conduct another audit to discovered that instead of the 840, we were 690 staff strength,” he said.

The projects commissioning includes, two classroom blocks, sport stadium, walk-through survival pool, ICT centre, Auditorium, Simulator centre and Library complex.

The 1000 seater auditorium has been named after the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.