Non-Subscriber Extract
Nigeria faces uphill struggle as piracy 'spirals out of control'
By Tim Fish
23 April 2008
When a bulk carrier was boarded by knife-wielding robbers off Lagos in the early hours of 14 April, it was just the latest in a long line of violent attacks in Nigerian waters that have put the international shipping community at a state of high alert.
Last year, two seafarers were killed - with dozens more injured, taken hostage or kidnapped - in Nigerian waters as the number of actual and attempted pirate attacks reported to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) rocketed from 12 in 2006 to 42 in 2007.
The figures were unveiled in the IMB's 2007 annual report, 'Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships', which was published in January this year. Speaking to Jane's soon afterwards, the bureau's director, Captain Pottengal Mukundan, blamed a "lack of proper law enforcement" and said there was "really no excuse" for the Nigerian Navy's (NN's) failure to "deal with this problem effectively".
In the first three months of 2008, the IMB tracked 10 incidents in Nigerian waters - more than 20 per cent of the global total - and warned in April that violence was "spiralling out of control". The IMB blames the miltant group MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) for the escalation in the frequency of attacks.
However, back in September 2007, the NN announced that it had seized 236 ships, tug boats and barges during the preceding three years, as part of a drive to reduce illegal offshore activity that had resulted in an 80 per cent reduction in crude oil thefts.
Responding to the latest statistics from the IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Centre, the NN now insists that it is doing its best with limited resources - in particular a lack of suitable vessels.
"It is a fact that the Nigerian Navy is experiencing an acute shortage of patrol boats for anti-piracy operations," Captain Henry Babalola, the navy's director of information, told Jane's.
The area the NN has to patrol is not inconsiderable: Nigeria's coastal waters stretch over 500 miles (805 km) from the border with Cameroon in the east to the border with Benin a few miles west of Lagos. The Niger Delta, which divides the southeastern and southwestern coasts, consists of more than 3,000 rivers, rivulets, entrances and lakes.
Image: The 15 Defender-class boats that carry out anti-piracy duties have been described as "grossly inadequate" by the NN. (SAFE Boats International)