Navy to acquire more survey vessels

The Nigerian Navy (NN) has said it is planning to acquire more hydrographic vessels for the effective charting of the country’s maritime space and ensure safer sea routes and channels.

The service said the contract had already been awarded for the acquisition of a 35-metre vessel that would function alongside the newly acquired special-purpose Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) LANA to aid the coverage of the country’s offshore waters.

NN’s Hydrographer Rear Admiral Chukwuemeka Okafor announced this after a news conference to mark this year’s World Hydrography Day with the theme: 100 Years of International Cooperation in Hydrography.

The Nation reports that with this feat, the country is gradually taking charge of the charting and mapping of its maritime space, a role the United Kingdom (UK) performed for Nigeria for more than 100 years.

Rear Admiral Okafor said the Navy was also making efforts to boost the nation’s hydrographic development through the upgrade of NN Hydrographic School in order to be accredited by the International Hydrography Organisation (IHO) to enable them to build requisite manpower in the military and civil spaces.

According to him, plans to ensure the country’s maritime space is charted started with the acquisition of NNS LANA, a specialised hydrographic ship with capabilities to perform defence and security roles.

“The plan to ensure the entire nation’s water is charted started with the acquisition of this vessel (NNS LANA) you are onboard now. The charts that have been produced were done with smaller boats that can operate within inland waters. Those boats were used to acquire the data that was used to produce those charts.

“Because those boats cannot safely operate at offshore areas, this vessel was acquired. Before it arrived, the Hydro Office had developed a national charting plan that shows how charts can be produced to cover Nigeria’s maritime space.

“So, one after the other, those plans would be implanted using this vessel… The plan is to out-phase that of the UK done over 100 years ago because every nation is responsible for the charting of its coastal and offshore waters.

“UK was doing it because it was like a stop-gap measure. We didn’t have the capacity; now that we do, we will gradually take over from them. As a matter of fact, we have started. If you check the International Chart Catalogue (ICENC) now, you will discover that the Lagos Harbour Chart used to be from the UK.”

In his virtual address to the Nigerian maritime stakeholders, Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo, stressed the importance of hydrography to the actualisation of the country’s Blue Economy Project.

He said: “Through hydrography, Nigeria’s inland waters, which connect the Atlantic Ocean via over 25 river entrances, can be opened for transportation of goods and services for export towards enhancing Nigeria’s economy.”