Essien Officially Unveils Blue Economy Academy In Lagos, Highlights 10 Buckets Of Maritime Potentials

 

Foremost public speaker , Ubong Essien, has officially launched Blue Economy Academy aimed to educate and enlighten Nigerians on the potentials of maritime sector.

The Academy which commenced learning activities recently, is positioned to eliminate sea blindness, with a view of creating awareness and engagement to the public about ocean-centric opportunities.

 

Speaking at the official launching of the Academy held in Lagos on Saturday, the former Special Adviser on Strategy Communications to the immediate past Director General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency
(NIMASA) , Dr.Bashir Jamoh , said the newly established capacity building school highlighted ten buckets of prosperity which centres on Blue commerce, bounty, cities, capital, governance and justice, nexus, climate, talent , ventures and power.

Essien, who is the founder of the Academy explained that Nigerians need to know more about potentials of the waters, saying that partnership with both private and public organizations was key in harnessing the maritime industry potentials

He added that the newly launched institution was established to educate people about the value and significance of wealth embedded in the waters, even as he stressed the need for advocacy and engagement that will drive supportive policies during the course of running programmes at the Academy.

The founder stated that “Nigerians need to know that as a coastal nation, the waters affect them economically and across the world.That is what we mean by nationwide impact.

He emphasised that if people know more about the sea, their minds expand and they begin to interpret their skill . According to him, the Academy will run its program through

The Public Speaker who also is the Dean of the School of Eloquence , (SOE), further announced that there are programmes that will require visiting one or two littoral states noting that some courses that will last for a month, will be available for participants.

Essien’ highlighted the immense potentials of Nigeria’s maritime domain and the critical need for skilled professionals to drive its sustainable development noting that “It is with this understanding that the Blue Economy Academy was established”.

“In Nigeria, we are largely sea blind.The level of awareness as to appreciate the value in our waters is so tragically insignificant. Most people don’t even understand the dimensions of what we have.

“In our vision, we say we envision a Nigeria that prospers with water, and in terms of how we want to go about it, we want to eliminate sea blindness.

“We created this technology, because in the course of my research, I took some time to develop what would be the framework for how we empower people to do economic knowledge. That’s why we created these 10 buckets and we’ll fetch from 10 buckets.

“Most of the education, with the exception of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) programmes and most of the education in the U.S. are what is called function-specific.

“Like what we’ve done here at the School of Eloquence, most of the education is function-specific. And if learning under this is going to be function-specific, the best persons to lead would have to be industry experts, giving them the opportunity to share their knowledge and create enough cross-fertilization for ideas to be brought to the fore, that could then filter into the policy channel for policy makers to find this

permission ”,he explained.