Determined to tackle insecurity on Nigeria’s waterways up to the Gulf of Guinea, through the realisation of an integrated surveillance and security architectural project, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has taken delivery of the first special mission vessel under the Deep Blue Project.
Olu Mustapha, chairman of the project monitoring team for the Deep Blue Project, also known as Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure, disclosed this recently in Lagos, at a graduation ceremony of a new set of C4i system operators.
Mustapha, who doubles as director, project services, at the Ministry of Defence, said the essence of the training for the intelligence officers was to ensure adequate capacity to man the assets under the Deep Blue Project, especially with the receipt of the special assets.
“The assets of the Deep Blue Project must be manned by competent personnel and that is what we are committed to through various training programmes for different components of the project. This will produce additional personnel for the optimisation of the system,” Mustapha said.
Dakuku Peterside, director-general of NIMASA, said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was committed to diversifying the economy, because maritime was seen as an economic game changer in this direction.
He said security of the maritime environment was a top priority of the administration.
“The Nigerian maritime domain and the Gulf of Guinea are known globally as major maritime security flashpoints. In addressing the challenges, a bi-ministerial collaboration of the Federal Ministries of Defence and Transportation, as well as the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), developed a maritime security architecture comprising all military and security services as well as NIMASA to ensure a conducive environment for maritime to thrive,” he said
Peterside, who was represented by Rotimi Fashakin, executive director, operations, said the Federal Government, through NIMASA, had invested ample resources in infrastructure, including developing critical manpower required to run the Deep Blue Project effectively and efficiently.
Recall that the Command, Control, Computer Communication and intelligence (C4i) centre located at the NIMASA-owned Nigerian Maritime Resource Development Centre (NMRDC), Kirikiri, acts as the nerve centre for operations and workflow management for all platforms under the Deep Blue Project.
It was commissioned in August and equipped with alert setting capabilities, coastal Automatic Identification System (SAT-AIS) signals all over the world, in liaison with some international security networks, for access to database for vessel movement, with capacity for six-year retrospective monitoring of vessels movement.
