Eromosele Abiodun writes that the Maritime Academy of Nigeria that was brought to its knees by mismanagement and corruption, has regained its lost glory with cadets and marine engineering students now members of Nautical Institute and IMAREST, United Kingdom
Formerly known as the Nautical College of Nigeria, the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, Akwa Ibom State was established in 1979 by the Federal Executive Council No.EC.(77) 172. It was designed as an integrated institution for the education and training of shipboard officers, ratings and shore-based management personnel.
The Academy graduated its first batch of Cadets in 1983. In 1988, the scope of the college was upgraded by the promulgation Decree No. 16 of 1988 with a statutory mandate to train all levels and categories of personnel required for the effective and efficient operation of all facets of the Nigerian Maritime Industry.
However, like most institutions in Nigeria, several years of mismanagement and massive corruption brought the once enviable institution to its knees.
It got so bad at a point that the institution’s debt rose to N7.2 billion, ranging from staff claims to payments for various contract of which some have been completed and ongoing projects.
At the time, the campus of the academy was littered with unfinished jobs while basic teaching and learning infrastructures were lacking.
Some members of staff of the academy were involved in contract racketeering which accounted for the many sub-standard implementation.
Also, essential facilities like the nautical science building, survival pool, main auditorium, male cadets hostel, engineering workshop, boatyard and many others were abandoned.
It got so bad that some students of the academy were forced to either sleep outside or in the classrooms because hostel accommodation meant for only eight students per room were overstretched with more than 17 students in each hostel room.
This was despite the fact that aside its budgetary allocation and its internally generated revenue from short courses, the academy is also entitled to five per cent of total revenue collected by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) as provided in sub section 2b, sub section 16 of the NIMASA Act 2007.
FG Steps in
However, in a bid to prevent a total collapse of the institution, the federal government on September 5, 2017, set up an interim management committee to revamp the institution and restore its lost glory.
The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, who inaugurated the interim management committee in Abuja, said the level of decay at the MAN was shameful and that he wanted to be remembered as the minister that fixed the rot. The committee was at the institution for a period of six months after which Commodore Duja Effedua (rtd) stepped in as the substantive rector of the academy.
It has been two years since Effedua became rector and the institution has witnessed massive transformation with 98 per cent of its infrastructure and equipment is now in place. All these were achieved without bank facility.
When THISDAY visited the institution to investigate the situation of things, it was a marvel to behold. As a matter of fact, right from the road leading to the academy and the main gate, the therapeutic ambience, cleanliness and serenity of the environment and the soothing breeze sweeping across the length and breadth of the academy were obvious that something new has been caused to happen.
But it was actually the facility tour that vindicated this initial impression. It was sooner discovered that the transformation in the academy goes beyond the neatly-cutting of grasses and painting of structures to that of infrastructural renaissance as seen in the renovation, refurbishing or remodelling of projects to meet expedient needs, completion of projects abandoned for decades, construction of new ones as necessity demands, and general facelift that creates an infectious conducive atmosphere for work and academic activities.
It is not just infrastructure and equipment that have been put in place, books and computers and smart boards for teaching have also been provided. Under the new management, there is a deliberate regime of emphasis on quality of students above quantity. To this end, cadet intake that used to be 1,800 has been reduced to 256 for the 2018/2019 academic session.
For effective and cost saving academic time management, Effedua said cadets are now enjoying free mandatory courses with newly introduced onboard seatime training for National Diploma cadets.
He said he had ensured all cadets and enrolling nautical science students as members of Nautical Institute, United Kingdom while marine engineering students are also members of Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMAREST) also of UK.
A New Dawn
As part of drive to address infrastructural challenges and provide conducive accommodation for cadets and staff, the academy within 18 months has completed projects which were hitherto abandoned. The completed projects were recently commissioned by the Minister of Transportation, Amaechi.
Some of the projects include a nautical science building that was abandoned for close to 15 years at foundation level, now completed and ready for use. What looked like a makeshift library being used with outdated literatures has been rebuilt with up-to-date reading materials in addition to high quality free books given to cadets. A modern lecturers briefing room and state of the art lecture theatres fitted with teaching and learning aids has also been put in place.
As part of finding solutions to the problems he inherited, Effedua said: ”I met a huge debt profile which I inherited from a regime that had so much funds and I wondered why they didn’t pay. I have paid over 80 per cent of genuine claims brought forward to me. I plugged areas of revenue leakages by avoiding payment of suspected fraudulent claims. It will interest you to know that after referring such claims to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), some of those making the claims never showed up again.”
He added: “In the past, funds were not properly channelled for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It ended in private pockets and I came in and stopped this. We don’t give money to individuals. This is part of why I am not popular with those who benefited from that kind of CSR. We provided computers to the Oron based Methodist Secondary School. What we did for them is above the standard in many universities around.
“This year, we bought 100 Joint Admission and Matriculation Boards (JAMB) forms for indigent students. We are going to buy for 200 students next year. The local hospital requests for 50 litre of diesel from pregnant women coming for delivery. The academy on my watch, intervened has been providing free diesel to the hospital.
“I set up a CSR Committee from the academy that has donated chairs and desks to Methodist High School and Mary Hanney Primary School. We discovered that these schools were lacking sitting furniture
“Eighty per cent of staff were from the host community in defiance to Federal Character principle and I wondered why no one saw this, including the maritime press. We have no intention to sack them from work but we shall continue to systematically recruit from other parts of the country to achieve some balance in future.”
“Oron people are peaceful and accommodating only a few of them gave us challenge. When I came newly, they recruited few women to picket the academy. The women themselves didn’t know why they were picketing our school. Another group of trouble makers brought a casket to our gate as part of protests. They also fell big trees to block the access road into the community. In the face of this harassment, we were determined to do our work.
Effedua added that the academy’s funding has improved and commended the timely release of funds by NIMASA.
According to him, paperwork sometimes delays release of the funds and the academy ends up not getting four quarter collections as expected yearly.
Between January and September 2019, he said the academy has trained over 3000 students from international oil companies (IOCs) including Mobil.
This, he stated, has greatly improved the academy’s internally generated revenue (IGR).
“We need more funding but we are not broke. We have saved money from our IGR with which we want to use to buy more simulators without any form of external financial support,” he said.
Financial Prudence
He added: “We had to carry out a financial audit of the Academy to know where we are and how much we truly owe. We are almost done with that and most of our former contractors who did genuine jobs have been paid.
“However, in the cause of the audit, we have seen more than 30 per cent non-existent contracts where contractors were filing in request for payment. We have already taken the matter to the EFCC and the ICPC. They are looking for these contractors now because most of them have disappeared into thin air.
“One contractor came and submitted a debt bill of N51million to me, which the academy is yet to pay him. When I called my procurement people, they said he didn’t do the job. So I called him in, engaged him in a discussion while we were being videoed. After the meeting, I asked him to come back the next day for an enlarged meeting with the EFCC and the ICPC. We are yet to see him till date.
“Through the audit, we have been able to block all revenue leakages, and that is why we were able to single-handedly finance our soon-to-arrive simulator and complete many abandoned projects without any funding from anywhere aside our statutory allocation that comes in from the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.”
On certificates issued by the academy, the rector revealed that due to the proliferation of the academy’s certificate by fraudsters, the academy has introduced a new certificate which has security features and are very difficult to forge.
On the issue of power supply and transportation, he acknowledged a challenge in that regard, noting that “we have been able to buy new buses for movement of students and staff. All new buses are to be only used for official purposes.
“In the area of power supply, we have bought two 250KVA generators because there is no power supply in Oron. In the area of cutting of weeds to avoid dangerous reptiles like snakes and others, I was told on resumption that the academy pays N200,000 to clear weeds. I had to buy two machines that clears the entire weeds in the academy within one or two days because I cannot pay N200,000 to some people to clear weeds.”
