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Dosunmu lauds Jamoh for saving NSDP from derailment

Dosunmu(L) Jamoh, at a public function

 

—–appeals to government to appoint professionals to head maritime agencies

The Eyewitness reporter

The former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency(NIMASA), Dr Ade Dosunmu, has attributed the sustainability and relevance of the National Seafarers Development Programme(NSDP) to the resilience and professional acumen of the incumbent Chief Executive of the agency, Dr Bashir Jamoh.

Dr Dosunmu, who was at the helms of affairs of the agency between 2007 to 2009, lauded Jamoh for bringing the seafarers’ empowerment programme back to track after many years of derailment from its core objective.

The erstwhile NIMASA boss, who was speaking recently during the send-forth of a new batch of 400 cadets to India and Greece for training, said the core objective of aligning the programme with sea time training has long been jettisoned before Dr Jamoh came on board to rescue the programme.

”I would want to specifically appreciate the commitment of the NIMASA team headed by Dr Bashir Jamoh. Your commitment has really brought the NSDP back on track. I remember when the programme started, you are the head of training at NIMASA.

”After the conception, some of us were not around, and the implementation was not in line with the programme’s objective. Sea time training was an integral part of the programme as it was conceived but the implementation did not follow this pattern and that is why we still have up today a backlog of cadets that went on training under the programme but do not have sea time experience.

”Some of them are not even ready to go back for sea training again because they are already doing something else, having stayed for a long time after the four years of training under the programme., some have even married.

”Whereas the original objective of the programme was to go hand in hand with sea-time training. I want to especially thank Dr Jamoh for bringing the programme back on track.

”Today, we don’t have the problem of sea-time training before the cadets set out for the programme, we know they are already prepared up to the point of certificate of competency and that was the original objective of the programme” Dr Dosunmu observed.

He also praised the Minister of Transportation, Alhaji Muazu Sambo for his zeal and commitment to key into the programme.

Dosunmu noted that, unlike other people who on coming to power, will create their own programmes and jettison the ones they met, he said the Minister not only keyed into the programmes he met on the ground but also pursued them with passion.

”I also want to thank the Minister of transportation for his zeal and commitment and for him to key into this programme and several other programmes in the ministry of transportation and NIMASA.

”It is not strange in this country when people come on board and they try to create their own programmes but in your own case, you have keyed into the programmes that you have seen are of significance to the national development.

”I want to thank you and your Permanent Secretary for supporting particularly NIMASA.”

Dr Dosunmu however appealed to the government to always appoint professionals who are within the system as the heads of the agencies in the maritime industry in order to bolster the development of the sector.

He observed that the success story of the NSDP today was a result of the fact that a man who rose through the ranks in NIMASA was appointed as its Chief Executive to drive the policies and programmes that are germane to the development of the industry.

”I want to appeal to the government and policymakers to always put round pegs in round holes. The significance of the resuscitation of the NSDP as we witnessed under the leadership of Dr Jaamo is that the people who are in charge are from within the system.

”I want to say without mincing words that if Dr Jamoh has not worked in NIMASA for close to 30 years, probably he would not be able to bring this programme back on track.

”Government should begin to allow professionals to head government agencies in the maritime industry as it is done in other critical  sectors of the economy

”In health, aviation and other critical sectors of the economy where professionals are appointed to head their parastatals, so also should government begin to make professionals head the agencies in the industry because shipping is international and a specialised area that should be headed by core professionals if the government wants sound policies to drive the sector’ Dr Dosunmu concluded.

The NSDP is an interventionist capacity training programme to empower seafarers. It started in 2008 under the then leadership of Dr Ade Dosunmu as the Director General of NIMASA.

Since its inception, the programme has enrolled 2041 students on scholarships spread across the geo-political zones of the country. Out of these numbers, 892 have become licensed deck and engine officers including Naval architects while they are in their final stage of the programme.

 

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Headlines

Beyond The Communique: Can West Africa’s $27 billion port rhetoric Outrun gridlock?

The Monday Discourse with Nasiru 
The dust has settled on the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) conference hosted by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in Lagos last week.
 For three days, 18th to 20th May 2026, Maritime Executives, Regional Ministers, and Portuguese Administrators traded optimism, signed agreements, and toasted to the future.
The headlines if not hallucinating, were intoxicating: a staggering $27 billion committed to Regional Port Infrastructure, grand declarations of transforming into sustainable “Blue Economy” engines, and lofty goals to replicate the seamless digital models of Rotterdam and Singapore.
Yet, for the average importer, shipping line agent, or haulage driver navigating the chaotic access roads of Apapa, Tin Can, or Luanda, the disconnect between boardroom rhetoric and dockyard reality remains jarring.
While the Lagos conference successfully demonstrated Nigeria’s diplomatic hosting prowess under the leadership of NPA Managing Director, Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, it also exposed a deeper regional vulnerability.
West and Central African ports are masterful at planning, but historically abysmal at executing.
If this $27 billion infrastructure boom is to be anything more than a monumental paper tiger, regional leadership must pivot immediately from policy curation to aggressive, unforgiving execution.
On paper, the sub-region is undergoing a maritime renaissance. We are told of Guinea’s massive $20 billion Simandou-Morebaya project, Cote d’Ivoire’s $2 billion Port San Pedro expansion, and Nigeria’s own $1.5 billion Lekki Deep Sea Port, alongside fresh pledges to modernize aging brownfield terminals.
But a Port is not merely a collection of deep berths, breakwaters, and expensive gantry cranes. It is an intricate, living logistical ecosystem.
Building a multi-billion-dollar Deep-Sea Port while leaving the surrounding multimodal transport network broken is an exercise in futility.
Lekki Deep Sea Port, despite its state-of-the-art infrastructure, still struggles with optimal evacuation routes.
True regional competitiveness will not be won by the nation that signs the largest infrastructure contract; it will be won by the nation that successfully connects its berths to functioning rail lines, Inland Dry Ports (IDPs), and uncongested highways.
Until cargo can move from a vessel to an inland destination seamlessly, these multi-billion-dollar investments are simply monumentally expensive parking lots for containers.
The conference highly praised the “Rotterdam-Singapore data-exchange model” as the blueprint for eliminating West Africa’s notoriously high cargo dwell times.
 In Nigeria, officials proudly showcased the roll-out of the National Single Window initiative and the Port Community System.
But let us be objective: West African ports do not suffer from a lack of digital concepts; they suffer from a lack of institutional compliance.
For years, “Single Windows” have been launched, rebranded, and relaunched, yet manual interventions persist.
Why? Because automation directly threatens the lucrative, entrenched economies of corruption, extortive  human contact, and bureaucratic bottlenecks.
 Replicating Singapore requires more than buying expensive software; it requires the political will to strip corrupt agencies of their physical inspection monopolies.
If Customs administrations and border agencies can still demand the physical, manual opening of containers despite digital clearances, then the “Paperless Port” remains an expensive mirage.
A commendable takeaway from the Lagos summit was the celebration of Nigeria’s Deep Blue Project, which has successfully suppressed piracy in the Gulf of Guinea for three consecutive years.
This is a massive victory for regional security. However, security is only a facilitator of trade, not trade itself.
While the waters may be safer from pirates, the land corridors remain plagued by a different kind of piracy: systemic extortion at border checkpoints, overlapping regulatory charges, and severe cargo diversion.
It is an open secret that landlocked neighbors like Niger, Chad, and Mali often bypass geographically closer Nigerian ports in favor of Beninese, Togolese, or Ghanaian corridors.
 Why? Because the total cost of cargo clearance, measured in both time and bribes, makes Nigerian routes economically punitive.
Decentralizing operations to Nigeria’s Eastern Ports, as proposed by the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, will fail to yield results if the same predatory regulatory culture is simply exported from Lagos to Port Harcourt, Warri, Onne, and Calabar.
If the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa wants to avoid meeting next year to lament the same old problems, the AGENDA must change today.
First, the NPA and its regional peers must tie Port Key Performance indicators (KPIs) strictly to cargo dwell times, not revenue generation.
A Port’s primary job is efficiency, not tax collection. Second, the implementation of the National Single Window must be backed by executive enforcement that legally penalizes any agency insisting on manual intervention outside automated channels.
Finally, regional integration must move past the ECOWAS protocol paperwork. There must be a unified, digitized tracking system that allows a container cleared in Lagos to move to Niamey without facing a dozen predatory checkpoints.
The Lagos communique was a beautiful piece of literature. But literature does not offload vessels, clear containers, or lower the cost of doing business.
 West Africa’s maritime sector does not need more summits, boards, or committees. It needs an execution squad.
Until we match our boardroom eloquence with dockyard discipline, the “Ports of the Future” will remain a luxury we can only read about in conference brochures.
Chief Ibrahim Nasiru , a Public Affairs Analyst, writes from Abuja
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Analyses

Beyond The Lagos Communique: Can West Africa’s $27 Billion Port Rhetoric Outrun Gridlock?

Ibrahim Nasiru
The Monday Discourse with NASIRU focuses on the take away from the just concluded PMAWCA board meeting in Lagos.
Last week, maritime leaders gathered in Lagos for the PMAWCA conference, celebrating a staggering $27 billion infrastructure boom and drawing up plans to replicate the seamless digital models of Rotterdam and Singapore.
But for the average importer, agent, or truck driver trapped in the chaos of Apapa or Tin Can, the disconnect is jarring.
West African Ports are masterful at planning, but historically abysmal at executing.
A multi-billion-dollar Deep Sea Port is just an expensive parking lot for containers if the surrounding rail and road infrastructure remains broken.
True competitiveness will not be won by the nation that signs the largest contract; it will be won by the nation that actually clears a container without corruption, extortion, or manual delays.
It is time to move past courtroom style policy curation and deploy an execution squad.
Read full details tomorrow on why West Africa’s maritime sector needs dockyard discipline over boardroom eloquence.
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Headlines

Sallah celebration: Osun govt offers free train ride to indigenes as NRC increases Lagos–Ibadan Train Trips for Sallah

Gloria Odion, maritime reporter 
The Osun State government has made full payment to the Nigerian Railway Corporation( NRC) for the use of its narrow gauge rail services to transport the indigenes of the state free of charge for the Sallah celebration.
The annual gesture was confirmed by the management of the Corporation while announcing a temporary increase  in train services on the Lagos–Ibadan Train Service (LITS) corridor for Tuesday, May 26, 2026, ahead of the Sallah celebration.
The NRC revealed that the Osun government free train ride will be on its narrow gauge corridor.
The special train will depart from Iddo Station, Lagos, on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, while the return trip from Osogbo to Lagos will take place on Thursday, May 28, 2026.
The service, which is usually operated during festive periods, is being sponsored by the Osun State Government through a paid arrangement with the Nigerian Railway Corporation to convey Osun indigenes free of charge for the Sallah celebration.
Meanwhile, the Corporation has announced an adjustment to its schedule on its Lagos–Ibadan Train Service (LITS) corridor for Tuesday, May 26, 2026, ahead of the Sallah
The temporary adjustment is aimed at accommodating the expected increase in passenger movement as many Nigerians travel to celebrate the festive season with their families and loved ones.
Under the special arrangement, the Corporation will operate six train trips on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, instead of the usual four trips currently operated on the corridor.
For the day, train departures from the Lagos end will be at 7:45am, 1:40pm and 4:00pm, while departures from the Ibadan end will be at 8:00am, 10:50am and 4:30pm.
The Management clarified that this arrangement is strictly temporary and applies only to the Sallah travel period.
 Immediately after the celebration, the normal Tuesday timetable of four trips will resume.
Similarly, the recently introduced Thursday six-trip operations will be temporarily adjusted next week, as only four trips will operate on Thursday May,  28th during the period under review.
The regular six-trip Thursday schedule will however resume the following week.
The NRC reassured passengers of its commitment to providing safe, efficient and reliable rail transportation services across the country and wishes all Nigerians a peaceful and memorable Sallah celebration.
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