Harboursandport.com: Lagos - Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, has appealed for the standardisation of the legal frameworks of countries in the Gulf of Guinea to aid effective prosecution of maritime crimes.
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L-R: Professor
Kwesi Aning of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre
(KAIPTC); Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety
Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh; Mr. Barthelemy Gbaka Blede from Cote
D’Ivoire; and Air Commodore George Arko-Dadzie of KAIPTC, during the Third
Technical Rotating Meeting of the project on “enhancing regional research,
convening of stakeholders and capacity development in the Gulf of Guinea”
implemented by KAIPTC in Accra, and the Government of Demark, in Lagos
recently.
Jamoh made the appeal in Lagos at the Third Technical Rotating Meeting of the project on “enhancing regional research, convening of stakeholders and capacity development in the Gulf of Guinea” implemented by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, and the Government of Denmark.
A communique calling for the transformation of Yaoundé Code of Conduct (YCC) into a binding convention for better coordination and optimal benefit to the member countries, was issued at the end of the meeting organised in partnership with NIMASA and the Inter-Regional Coordination Centre (ICC).
A statement
signed by Assistant Director, Public Relations of NIMASA, Osagie Edward, noted
that the NIMASA boss said efforts were being made to standardise regional
maritime law enforcement, stressing that some countries are already enacting
their own antipiracy laws.
Jamoh stated,
“We encourage countries within the region, which do not have distinct
antipiracy laws, to try to enact such laws. It is in the interest of every
country in the Gulf of Guinea to consciously work to remove obstacles to the
prosecution of piracy and sea robbery suspects.
“Shipping is
an international business, and crimes associated with it are equally
international in nature. Now, how do you try a suspect in a country where our
SPOMO Act cannot be applied?
“No country
can fight maritime insecurity alone. It is a collective responsibility. There
is hardly any nation that does not have commercial interest in the Gulf of
Guinea.
“So we must
work to ensure uniformity of legal frameworks in the region to facilitate
effective prosecution of maritime crimes.”
The communique
said, “The YCC, as it stands now, is a code of practice without any binding
provisions. This affects the way it is implemented at the regional and national
levels. The meeting, therefore, calls for expedited action towards the
transformation of the YCC into a binding Convention taking on board, the
peculiar contexts of diverse jurisprudence, linguistic traditions and the
inter-regional coverage of the code as well as the differing procedures of the
three (3) sponsors of the ICC (i.e. ECOWAS, ECCAS and the GGC).”
It said,
“Coordination of action at all levels is critical for impact on the ground.
Such coordination efforts must begin with states demonstrating willingness to
cede portions of their sovereignty and invest in the realizations of the
provisions of the YCC.”
The communique
also said, “State and multilateral actors who lead in the implementation of
safety and security measures in the Gulf of Guinea, must identify and implement
relevant confidence-building measures to reinforce the principles of
coordination and in the implementation of the YCC.”
The Yaoundé
Code of Conduct was signed in 2013 by 25 West and Central African countries. It
provides the structure for joint operations, intelligence sharing, and
harmonised legal frameworks among its five zones, two regional centres, and one
Interregional Coordination Centre (ICC) that watch over 6,000 kilometres of
coastline and 12 major ports.
The Kofi Anan
centre aims to ensure peace and security in Africa through capacity building,
research, and policy dialogue.
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