AMANO Backs Bill Seeking Academy’s Upgrade

Oluchi Chibuzor
The Alumni of Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron (AMANO) has stressed the need for maritime stakeholders in the country to support the bill seeking to upgrade the academy to a specialised university.

This, according to the group, is because the academy has gone through changes geared toward repositioning her for this role through Decree No. 16 of 1988, which placed her on the current status Maritime Academy of Nigerian (MAN).

Explaining to journalists in Lagos on the Alumni’s position on the bill seeking to provide for the establishment of MAN to a University, the President AMNAO, Emmanuel Gankino, said it was long overdue in line with the current developments in the industry.

He said their position on the bill was necessitated because maritime education was a specialised training endeavour that provides specific expertise and proficiency for the professional licensing and competency required to manage the industry effectively.

“AMANO has graciously submitted a memorandum to both the House of Representatives in the 8th Assembly and The Senate in the current 9th Assembly stating our views,” he added.
Gankino acknowledged that MAN remains the foremost specialised institution in Nigeria that provides the full range of professional education and training in accordance with the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) requirements for the training and certification of seafarers in Nigeria.

He stated that the Alumni, as a unified body, believes that it was time for the Federal Government to upgrade the Academy, as it did in 1988, to a degree-awarding institution.

“AMANO is of the opinion that the Academy retains its status as Nigeria’s specialised training institution with a core mandate to train maritime professionals for both sea-going and onshore careers who serve the nation’s maritime, shipbuilding, port operations, offshore oil & gas, and related industries.

“It is to be noted that there is a global shift in the training and education of maritime professionals to a multi-functional level. Modern trends in technological developments and digitalisation have made it imperative to train future mariners to meet the new Blue Ocean economy’s demand to operate and manage the maritime assets to achieve it,”he said.

On the developments in the academy under the leadership of Commodore Duja Effedua (Rtd), the alumni body were pleased that the federal government had restructured and rehabilitated the Academy from the degradation it had suffered in the past decades.