A former Sole Administrator of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron Akwa Ibom, Engr. Olu Akinsoji, has extolled the focused leadership of the Rector of the Academy, Commodore Duja Effedua(Rtd).
In a goodwill message during the 2022 Passing Out Parade (POP) ceremony, Akinsoji said Effedua’s leadership has made it possible for the Academy to begin the fulfilment of providing manpower for the maritime industry.
“Under your watch and administration, Academy has made tremendous strides in development; infrastructure and quality training towards the fulfilment of national policy objectives ( providing specialised manpower for the maritime industry).
“Frankly, the defective rudder of the Academy due mainly to leadership and funding has been restored and her ship appears to be homing to glory.”
Speaking on the quality of cadets being trained and graduated at this time, Akinsoji said” The cadets at graduation provide assurances of regimentation, discipline, knowledge, accountability, leadership, courage and pride of belonging to a nation. These are the attributes of your training and have placed them on the rungs of the ladder to successful lives.”
He, however, used the opportunity to call for an inclusion of career opportunities for the cadets upon graduation.
“The system that provides this training through expensive facilities and an impressive graduation ceremony should also be kind enough to balance it up with career opportunity for every Cadet and ensure that every graduating cadets at this ceremony has a letter of appointment from industry, ” Akinsoji said.
He also charged the cadets to be worthy ambassadors of Nigeria wherever each of them finds him or herself.
Speaking further, Akinsoji highlighted the importance of having quality human resource to sustain the international operating standards in the industry.
His words: ” The maritime industry, shopping or maritime transport business has International Operation Standards; standards that are sustained by quality men and women. Genuine optimal benefits from investment even at local/municipal level can better be achieved of the standards are tailored to conform.”
Bemoaning what he called a weak industry with deficient human capacity, Akinsoji noted that there are gaps on carriage of our share the cargo we generate I to the global shipping business, gaps in operating in the business of boat/shop building and repair yards, I stance, quality ship husbandry, ship turnaround in ports, Pilotage training , hydrographic and Fleet development.
He therefore called for encouragement of the organised private sector to identify their training needs and collaborate with the Academy to design and provide appropriate tailor-made courses to enhance and meet set targets of manpower development for the industry.
He added, “Operational standard approach in shipping is dynamic, therefore, training and retraining are essential for comparative benefits accruals from the business.
“The industry should endeavour to justify the efforts of the current management to of the Academy and take advantage of the enormous facilities installed.”
He recognised the significant importance and contributed of the maritime authorities as maritime policy executing agencies headed by the Federal Ministry of Transportation including the relevant committees of the National Assembly.
He therefore called for policy interpretation and implementation beyond policy formulation by the authorities.
Akinsoji also highlighted the need and importance of employing qualified manpower and exposing them to training and retraining programmes.
In that vein, he called on the Minister of Transportation to institute “A thorough world-class study of Human Capacity Analysis of the Maritime Industry of Nigeria and training Needs to involve all the authorities.
“Let the Academy be the national coordinator for the study using IMO as the executing agency principal source for global search and engagement of the best consultants.”
Akinsoji concluded that” The project, well instituted and given serious attention it deserves will justify the developmental status of the Academy and its presence in the family of the Federal Ministry of Transportation.”
