Naval Dockyard Can Build Merchant Vessels If Supported – CMA Rector

The Naval Dockyard Limited (NDL) is capable of providing the much needed shipbuilding and ship repair services the nation needed if supported, the Rector, Crown Maritime Academy (CMA), Dr. Musa Akinyemi has hinted.

He therefore called on the Presidency and the Federal Ministry of Transportation to commission the Naval Dockyard Limited (NDL) to design, develop, build and deliver Nigeria’s highly-needed merchant vessels as the dockyard has the capacity to do so.

Dr. Akinyemi made this comments at the end of his tour of the Naval facilities as part of the Academy’s Research and Development (R & D) Field-Trip with his cadets and students guided by the senior personnel of the dockyard at the Victoria Island base in Lagos recently.

The rector further called on other major maritime stakeholders, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN), Nigerian Indigenous Shipowners Association (NISA), Nigerian Ship Management Limited (NSML), public and private interests to as a matter of compulsion patronize the Naval Dockyard for Nigeria to take her rightful place among maritime nations.

The rector who was amazed by what he saw stated that “We cannot see three different war-ships built by the NDL and yet keep patronage of overseas shipyards for the nation’s expected cabotage vessels”.

According to the Rector who had a stint in NIMASA when it was National Maritime Authority (NMA), and was a senior staff of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), the Federal Government should consider contracting the NDL to deliver the first two or three merchant ships for fleet acquisition plan, so that the Cabotage Vessels Finance Fund (CVFF) would not be used for what it is not meant for or spent on foreign built vessels.

He was delighted to see the caliber of consistent, coherent and competent personnel the Nigerian Navy parades.

Akinyemi stressed that as partners in progress with the Nigerian Navy (NN), maritime professionals and water transport studies providers like his academy believe that the technological competitiveness and economic promises of the dockyard command more honours on the Nigerian Navy.

The Rector added that the three armed forces are now professional and transformational in their activities.

Akinyemi whose academy was recognized and listed as a Centre Of Academic Excellence in 2014/2015 by the Commonwealth Education Partnerships (CEP) of London, restated his appeal to the major maritime stakeholders and authorities to develop interests towards acquiring fleet locally from the Nigerian Navy facility.

He charged the President-elect and in-coming Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to “ensure that this appeal is specifically acknowledged and given full effect, especially in the interest of national content promotion, preservation of the nation’s Naval and Maritime heritage, job security and new employment opportunities, apart from the fact that, “we could only grow and increase the nation’s foreign reserves by producing, identifying with and patronizing locally what we have technical know how and advantage of”.