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African seafarers meet in Nigeria to discuss tacking their ills
By Emmanuel Goujon
AFP
ABUJA
Petroleumworld.com 05 30 06Delegates from African countries facing threats in their territorial waters began talks Monday in Abuja to discuss issues ranging from piracy and clandestine emigration to toxic waste and so boost trade.
A three-day international conference on maritime security in Africa opened in the Nigerian capital, where delegates are expected to discuss security issues in shipping and maritime affairs, including in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.
The theme of the conference is "Cooperation and development for enhancement of Africa's maritime capability".
Addressing the opening of the forum, Nigeria's Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye said that there was an urgent need to address maritime insecurity problems in the continent.
"Much as the sea has become a veritable source of national economic development in terms of transit and resource exploitation, littoral states have had to contend with increasingly disturbing maritime insecurity," Adekeye said.
"This includes smuggling, poaching, illegal fishing, piracy, drug and human trafficking, dumping of toxic wastes, sabotage and lately, maritime terrorism," he stated.
"Other daunting challenges include protection of multinational hydrocarbon exploitation offshore as well as combating sea-borne insurgency, environmental degradation and maritime disasters," he added.
He said that the contemporary globalisation trend and expanding maritime trade have made it more compelling for navies in the continent to develop a common strategy for maritime cooperation and security.
In his opening remarks, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo expressed the need to make Africa's maritime environment safe in other to attract trade and investments as well as harvest natural resources.
"Our maritime environment must be made secure to enable our nations to peacefully harvest the resources therein. It must be safe for free trade with the rest of the world and, most of all, it must not be available for terrorists, pirates and illegal explorers to use," he said.
"The world is fast globalising and the global economy is fuelled by intercontinental trade, most of which is sea-borne. This underscores the critical significance of ensuring the security of the world oceans," added Obasanjo.
"We in Nigeria recognise the need for the entrenchment of collective security for Africa and have not only preached it but have been known to spreahead it," he said in a reference to the country's peacekeeping efforts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and recently in Sudan's Darfur region.
During the Abuja conference, the place of maritime security in a proposed African Union (AU) standby force will be discussed.
Some of the notable shipping routes in Africa are Strait of Gibraltar, the Meditarranean Sea, the Cape of Good Hope at the extreme south of the continent and Suez Canal.
Another strategic zone, the Gulf of Guinea, has a sizeable proportion of petroleum resources held by west and central African countries. But this region is a regular scene of acts of piracy or the sabotage of the petroleum industry, especially in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, where armed separatist groups make frequent demands for a larger share of oil revenues.
Militant groups in Nigeria kidnap foreign oil workers, issue threats and vandalise oil facilities to press for their demands.
About 200 delegates from 47 countries, including 38 heads of African navies, are participating in the conference.
The last edition took place last August in South Africa.
AFP 29 1534 GMT 05 06
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