Indigenous shipowners have bemoaned the N1.5trillion annual revenue losses due to Nigeria inability to substantially harness its ocean blue economy.

LEADERSHIP Sunday reports that blue economy is marine-based economic developmental process which leads to improved wellbeing through sound management of marine resources, fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, transportation and maritime and inland ports.

However, despite the massive resources in the blue economy which involve marine transportation and exploitation of living and non-living resources in the maritime environment, it has been revealed that the nation’s maritime sector is losing about N1.5 trillion annually due to its inability to exploit this resource base.

Stakeholders have argued that harnessing the ocean blue economy would help to reduce African poverty and enhance food and energy security, employment, exports and economic growth. For instance, in 2009, exports from Nigeria were $80.1 billion and N49 billion as the goods were carried on Freight on Board (FoB), whereas imports to Nigeria stood at $942.3 billion and 33.9 billion and these were carried on Cost insurance and Freight (CIF).

Evidently, the economy lost the maritime insurance and freight elements of both our export and import trade worth $122.4 billion in 2008 and $82.9 billion in 2009. The estimated total loss to the economy in terms of capital flight based on the study is huge and, when considered over the years, the amount becomes mind boggling.

The president, Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN), Engr. Greg Ogbeifun told LEADERSHIP Sunday that Nigeria was not tapping any benefits from the massive potentialities in the blue economy. According to him, the nation cannot be talking about blue economy when the water is polluted and citizens are dumping refuse indiscriminately, thereby killing off aquatic life.

He said, “Well, for me, the truth is that we have not harnessed the potentialities of previous opportunities in the maritime industry because the whole world has moved on; we have not even started. The whole world is talking about free economy and we are still talking about blue economy. We are talking about blue economy when our waters are saturated with rubbish.

“All our waters are full of dirt. Our environmental activities are poor and our waters are polluted with all sorts of things. We are not ready for the blue economy. We can be talking about it but we are not ready. We have some people in parts of the country who have habits of defecating in the waters and putting rubbish in the waters and those are affecting aquatic life; pollution is everywhere. The blue economy is there but we are not ready to reap anything inherent at all.”

On his part, the president, Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA), Alhaji Aminu Umar, concurred with Ogbeifun that Nigeria was not tapping the opportunities in the ocean blue economy.

He said, “We are underutilising the opportunities that we could have harnessed in our maritime sector. When you talk about blue economy, you are talking about all the potentialities, opportunities of business or income that can be generated using our waters.

“As you can see, in the shipping side, which is part of the maritime business, we are far below the opportunities that are there, in terms of ownership in the country, in terms of movement of cargoes coming and going out of the country.” Umar further stated that the nation was losing more than N1.5trillion to the non-utilisation of the blue economy, a sector, he said, could have been used to develop the economy.

However, speaking to LEADERSHIP Sunday on the benefits of blue economy to the nation’s economy, the director-general, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside, said that harnessing the blue economy would provide a boost to coastal and national economies and help generate new employment, skill-sets and capacities.

“Harnessing ocean blue economy will promote entrepreneurship in new areas of economic activity, facilitating the interconnectedness of the regional economy and utilising the vast, untapped potential of the ocean as well as contributing to sustainable development and climate change mitigation.”

According to Peterside, the length of Nigeria’s coastline and the attendant volume of maritime trade provide Nigeria an advantage as a developing nation. He said, “Stakeholders must actively participate in the sector in order to reap benefits because developing the blue economy is paramount across the globe now, and the public and private sectors have to collaborate to sustainably harness the potentialities of Nigeria’s maritime sector for the benefit of the Nigerian economy, especially in the wake of the federal government’s economic diversification drive. He pointed out that the economies of countries like Singapore, Ukraine and South Korea thrive on the activities of their maritime sectors.

“Nigerians need to begin tapping into these opportunities too. An improved maintenance culture, adequate data management and statistics, articulated actions from stakeholders, and political will can make Nigeria a leading light in the comity of maritime nations,” he noted.

•Excerpted from a Leadership report