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Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, former of Rivers State, has asked the Niger Delta people to blame themselves, not anybody from Lagos or westerners, for the steady decline of ports in the east. He spoke in tense voice, saying the truth must be told.
Amaechi spoke while in Warri, Delta State, at a day stakeholders’ conference organised by Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) in conjunction with his ministry to harvest ideas and issues in the maritime economy.
The minister said the accusation had been that western Nigeria did not want eastern ports to survive and thus waxed all manner of policies to achieve the plot, saying he too believed it. How however said the moment he took over as minister, he went into the issue and found that the issue was not true at all.
Returning the blame to his people, Amaechi said the youths had taken to piracy and theft, turning the waters to the region unsafe. He said it was wrong for someone in the conference to call for military escort for ships sailing to the South South.
Amaechi referred the stakeholders to the war insurance system, which made cost of taking goods to the Niger Delta water double the cost of Lagos. “I once called Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State, to educate me on why importers in Onitsha and Aba shun Port Harcourt ports. He said they preferred paying to transport containers for eight hours from Lagos and pay bribe on the way to Onitsha and Aba than import through Port Harcourt that is mere 30 minutes drive.
“He said it was still far cheaper to import from Lagos because of insecurity and the war insurance charged by international shippers to venture into risky waters,” the minister said.
The minister urged the Niger Delta people to look at issues objectively instead of looking for who to blame always. “They say I am not a good politician. I could come here and speak good English and promise how we are going to make eastern ports to overtake Lagos, and you will clap, but it will be untrue. Instead, we must stop looking at outsiders, call ourselves in hall and tell ourselves the truth. That is where to start,” he said.
He went on: “We are not the hungriest people in Nigeria. We are not poorer than those in Lagos or north. We must admit that violence and piracy do not help any economy.”
He told the ship owners to consider protests and petition to the President because, as he put it, some saboteurs were frustrating moves by the Federal Government to protect Nigerian waters through the $195 million (about N70.2bn) contract signed a year ago.
The fund is meant to acquire three helicopters, three aircrafts, three big battle-ready ships, 12 vessels and 20 amphibious cars to combat the menace of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. The contract had been approved to an Israeli security firm, but it has rather become a mirage.
Amaechi alleged that some government officials, and “People making money from water” were sabotaging government’s effort in restoring peace on the nation’s troubled waters.
He said: “For ship owners, you need to do a petition to the President, you need to behave like an activist. The President approved a contract of $195 million and there are people in the system sabotaging that contract. The contract is to restore security in the nation’s waters.”
He threatened to disclose the names of those behind the sabotage if pushed to the wall. “I won’t say who they are until it gets out of control. We are still battling for the contract to take place, but if it gets out of hand, we will name them, including the security people.
“These are people who make billions of dollars from the waters so they don’t want security on the waters, because if we secure the waters, all this rubbish will go. We need to ask ourselves what happened to an approval that was given about two years ago by the President,” he said.
