Of all the 20 African countries which border the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria is unarguably the only country at the forefront to restore security to the notoriously troubled region.

The country has consistently committed huge resources and engaged in strategic partnerships with foreign countries in a bid to decimate pirate attacks in the region.

The most ambitious of such commitment was the multi-million dollars deep blue project which was launched and deployed in June 2021 aimed at keeping the Nigerian territorial waters safe and by extension, to keep the dare-devil pirates at bay from the Gulf of Guinea.

In addition, the Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the lead government agency in charge of maritime safety and security in the country, has also embarked on an international campaign to sell the efforts of the Federal government in the Gulf of Guinea.

One of such several efforts to sell to the international community the gradual declining activities of pirates in the Gulf of Guinea was by the Director-General of NIMASA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh at an international round table entitled “Seafarers and Maritime Capacity at the Core of Africa’s Shipping Future,” where he highlighted recent declines both in kidnappings and attacks on ships at anchor in the country.

This campaign was part of measures by the Nigerian authorities  to highlight the decline of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea as they work to rehabilitate the reputation of the region and attract new investments.

The Nigerian government was promoting the overall decline in activity while saying that it was also working to expand the efforts and further involve forces ranging from the police to the navy to continue the progress.

“There has been a decline in piracy attacks in the Gulf of Guinea, as the region recorded 28 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the first nine months of 2021, in comparison to 46 for the same period in 2020,” Jamoh said during his presentation.

“Crew kidnappings in the region have dropped with only one crew member kidnapped in Q3 2021, compared to 31 crew members taken in five separate incidents during Q3 2020.”

However, stakeholders said these presentations highlighting the decline in kidnappings, came as details continued to filter out on the latest incident involving a containership in the region.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland provided some of the first official details following reports by the security services and a brief statement from the Danish Foreign Ministry.

The Polish Ministry confirmed that one of the six individuals taken was a Polish citizen and said it was working on the return of their seafarer.

The incident took place on December 13, but there was some confusion on the exact number of people involved as some crew members were thought to be hiding on the containership.

The containership, the Greek-owned Tonsberg, is a 5,551 TEU vessel operating under charter to CMA CGM and is registered in Liberia.

It is believed that six crew members were kidnapped and a seventh received a gunshot wound and was being treated aboard a Danish frigate.

Dryad reported that this latest incident brought the total to 10 incidents with 76 crew abducted this year.

Speaking at the conference, Nigeria officials cited the economic impact as well as environmental pollution from the piracy activity. They admitted that the attacks were taking place in anchorages and various parts of the country, but said they were meeting with the police to better coordinate efforts with the Navy.

“It impacted the seafarers and shipping economically such as loss of revenue due to illegal activities, high insurance premium, a threat to commerce, socially such as arm and drug smuggling, and kidnapping,” they said during the presentation but promised that they were committed to continuing the progress cited by Jamoh.

The NIMASA boss however disclosed that various interventions had been introduced to address the situation, including passage of new legislation and review of local laws.

In June 2021, Nigeria launched a coordinated programme known as Deep Blue which was outfitted with a broad range of equipment to combat piracy both at the bases as well as in the country’s territorial waters.

International forces are seeking to supplement the effort, but as the Danes highlighted in the recent incident, they were barred from following the pirates with the kidnapped crew when they entered territorial waters.