By Mary BASSEY, Senior Investigator Correspondent, Lagos/
LAGOS THE Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama and the US Fleet Six Commander, Vice Admiral Thomas Ishee have commended the Nigerian Navy NN in its relentless efforts in security the nation’s maritime domain especially, the Gulf of Guinea. The duo made the commendation at the weekend at the Naval Dockyard, venue of the flag off of the 2023 Exercise Obangame. Onyeama who was guest of honour at the event could not hold his appreciation for the navy under the watch of Vice Admiral AZ Gambo who he said had been able to calm the tempestuous tide of sea piracy at the Gif of Guinea. He noted that the cordial relations between the Nigerian Navy and other Navies of the word was a healthy one aimed at fostering stronger synergy to tackle the menace of sea piracy.
He praised President Muhammadu Buhari for paying special attention to the Navy, adding that his action was responsible for the peace at the Gulf of Guinea; saying, “First of all I want to thank our US friends for collaborating with the Nigerian navy, and having a maritime environment that is conducive for economic development and fishing activities. This friendship is very important to foster a greater synergy and work together. As mentioned by the US Consular-General, the world is full of enormous global challenges including maritime challenges and it is extremely heartwarming for the Nigerian government to have a leadership to see that the Nigerian navy is performing extremely well. .
And I want to thank the chief of naval staff for what he has achieved so far because in about sixty years ago, it was said that there was global piracy challenges, in the Indian Ocean and the Somali, it was real global problem. And after a while, that subsided and we were hearing that they have moved to the gulf of guinea, and very suddenly, the gulf of guinea became a black spot globally for maritime transfer and other things. And of course, the impact it has on the country’s economy is quite enormous. We are extremely delighted to hear that from becoming a global black spot, that is virtually zero now, it is great lot of achievement under the watch of Vice Admiral AZ Gambo. the Chief of Naval Staff. And literally you not resting on your oars and having exercises like this show tenacity of purpose and the level of preparedness to tackle this menace. President Muhammadu has also attached great importance to the Navy and the Gulf of Guinea to promote trade because the potentials are enormous and he is determining to secure the zone for greater trading activities.”
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In the same vein, the US Sixth Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Thomas Ishee thanked the Nigerian Navy for its kind gestures for the collaboration and resoluteness in securing the nation’s maritime domain for thriving social economic activities. To him, “Exercise Obangame is a security exercise that has been in preparation for a very long time. It means together which is very appropriate for this exercise the exercise is been conducted by 32 nations across one continent and includes all… There are nine ships involved including the huge ship, boat and small vessels are also involved including US towing vessels and they will be making their way to Lagos next week. 15 aircraft is involved and including one US P38 air control aircraft and mini helicopters.
Most importantly there are 450 participant sailors, coast guard men and there will be some soldiers that will be embarking on these planes and ships and they will be on transit within the zones to maintain their time awareness and to practice those skills necessary to maintain their time in their time security. There is also 250 personnel that will be mainly air time personnel for operations on shore and also mobile personnel that will be maintaining their time awareness. Mobile time exercise awareness will be maintaining the zones and exercising tactic technicians to position navy to police their own waters. I think this exercise will improve social rescue and will continue to improve a lot of Guinea nations to cancel piracy, illegal fishing, trafficking and oil bunkering.
I will like to thank Nigeria navy host especially, the chief of Navy staff, AZ Gambo.
I was very impressed with your forces operations yesterday which I got a chance to view in demonstration and I witnessed this at Navy town by supporting and participating in like Obangame Exercise; we will continue to building partnerships capability to conquer criminal activity that is threatening nations’ ability to support its own people. Only Africa nations can solve African problem and the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard can have the opportunity to partner with this nations to help support this efforts which is building security and free open and prospering societies.”
Reacting, the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral AZ Gambo said, “I am delighted to again welcome everyone to the Flag-Off ceremony of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023. It is indeed a privilege to flag-off this annual, yet auspicious event in the presence of such a distinguished audience from far and wide. I am not oblivious of your other demanding schedules that you must have sacrificed to be here today, the Nigerian Navy is particularly grateful. I am optimistic that at the end of the Exercise, major objectives of improving security in the Gulf of Guinea and enhanced synergy between Gulf of Guinea navies and allied friends will be largely met.
Exercise OBANGAME, now in its Thirteenth year, is an annual multinational maritime exercise, which was conceptualized on the need for Gulf of Guinea navies and coastguards to bolster cooperation for regional maritime safety and security in furtherance of the Yaounde Code of Conduct. Accordingly, the Exercise is designed to improve regional collaboration through joint operations, intelligence sharing and harmonized legal frameworks to enhance collective capabilities of Gulf of Guinea nations against maritime crimes. This year’s exercise is particularly instructive considering effort of the African Union at establishing and operationalizing regional taskforces. This will no doubt enhance the African Continental Free Trade Agreement as well as development of sustainable Blue Economy.
According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the African Continental Free Trade Area has potentials to boost Intra-African trade by 33 per cent and cut the continent’s trade deficit by 51 per cent. Notably, the maritime industry and the shipping sector in particular constitute a critical driver in implementation of the ideals of African Continental Free Trade Agreement. Gleaning from the foregoing, the Gulf of Guinea countries are already collaborating for the establishment of a Maritime Taskforce to further facilitate security and enhance international commerce. It is thus, envisaged that Nigeria and indeed the Nigerian Navy would provide a lead role in this regard.
Accordingly, Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023 presents another opportunity for the Nigerian Navy to work together with regional and friendly foreign navies in the spirit of the Yaoundé Accord. The Exercise, from its inception in 2010, has grown in both complexity and in accomplishment. Starting with just 9 participating nations in a centralized exercise, OBANGAME EXPRESS has moved to decentralized events with about 28 participating nations and over 100 individually evaluated events. The Nigerian Navy will be deploying 9 ships, 2 helicopters and maritime domain awareness assets as well as elements of the Special Boat Services for this year’s edition. I am optimistic that the Exercise will positively impact on Nigerian Navy’s readiness for combat operation through training, while exposing other maritime related agencies to benefits of inter-agency cooperation as well as international collaboration. It is worthy to state that sequel to delisting Nigeria from the list of piracy prone countries by the International Maritime Bureau in its report of March 3, 2022, Nigerian Navy has sustained zero piracy attack within Nigerian waters till date.
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Furthermore, reports from various Regional Maritime Awareness Capability centres, indicates improvements in legitimate shipping activities with negligible crime rates. These achievements are attributable to sustained presence of Nigerian Navy ships at sea, increased regional and international synergy as well as maritime domain awareness as facilitated by exercises such as Obangame. To consolidate on gains of last year’s Exercise, I am aware that the United States Coast Guard Ship SPENCER and Spanish Navy Maritime Offshore Patrol Vessel MV AUDAZ would be participating in this year’s Exercise in Maritime Zone E.
This development again underscores the importance of Exercise OBANGAME particularly in building requisite human capacity that would foster better understanding and burden sharing especially in a fast-changing operating environment. Pertinently, a lot of logistics, planning and coordination are required to put together an Exercise of this magnitude. I must therefore appreciate the United States Government through the United States Africa Command and other international partners for facilitating and sustaining Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS over the years as well as providing technical support for our regional awareness capability.
Relatedly, the Nigerian Navy under my watch remains committed to eradicating act of criminality in the nation’s maritime domain and by extension the Gulf of Guinea for legitimate socio-economic activities to thrive for the wellbeing of our people. Permit me at this juncture, to express our gratitude to the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Federal Republic of Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, for his untiring support to the Nigerian Navy. Let me also appreciate the Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command, the Fleet Commander and all officers and personnel of the Western Fleet as well as other fleets present, for your zeal and determination to rid the nation’s maritime environment of all forms of criminality. I wish you all a successful exercise. On this note, it is my singular honour and privilege to flag-off EX OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023. As you join other navies at sea, I wish the officers and ratings of participating ships fair winds and following seas.
Earlier, the Flag Officer Commanding Westernal Naval Command, Rear Admiral YB Wambai stressed, “On behalf of officers, ratings and civilian staff of Western Naval Command, I welcome you all onboard NNS KADA for the Flag-Off Ceremony of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023. Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS is an annual multinational maritime security exercise organized under the auspices of the United States Africa Command. It is aimed at building capacity of Navies and Coast Guards of Gulf of Guinea nations in dealing with maritime security challenges through combine operations and exercises as well as intelligence sharing. From inception in 2010, the Nigerian Navy has hosted the Exercise many times across the 3 operations’ commands.
Let me therefore appreciate the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral AZ Gambo, Admiralty Medal, Commander of Order of Federal Republic for nominating the Western Naval Command as the host of EXERCISE OBANGAME 2023. I want to assure the Chief of the Naval Staff that the confidence reposed in me as the Officer Conducting the Exercise and the Western Naval Command, in general, will be aptly justified. 2. EXERCISE OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023 presents another opportunity for the Nigerian Navy to exercise its fleet with other navies and coast guards in the sub-region as well as navies of our international collaborators in line with the Yaoundé Architecture Accord. Accordingly, Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023 will be conducted for 7 days commencing from today 27 January 2023 to 3 February 2023. On Day One at sea, the Task Group will be exercised on anti-human trafficking, followed by drills on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and illegal oil bunkering on Day 2.
Day 3 shall future various gunnery and communication exercises while the whole fleet will conduct fleet manoeuvres, and thereafter simulate firefighting and flooding exercise on Day 4. Additionally, the Task Group will conduct anti-arms and anti-drugs smuggling on Day 5, and thereafter conduct anti-piracy exercise in conjunction with other navies in Zone E on Day 6. On the Day 7, all the participating ships shall return to harbour for debrief. Permit me to mention here that all the exercises have been carefully planned and will be conducted in line with best practices. Therefore, the Task Group will embark selected staff of Ministry of Justice, Fishery Department of Ministry of Agriculture, National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency, Immigration, Customs and National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) to witness the conduct of the exercises.
To accomplish these tasks, the Chief of the Naval Staff graciously assigned 10 ships, 8 boats, 2 helicopters and one Maritime Patrol Aircraft, a detachment of Special Boat Service and the use of the Maritime Domain Awareness Capabilities for the conduct of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023. It is expected that cooperation, collaboration and information sharing capabilities as well as coordination towards achieving safe and secured maritime environment would be enhanced at the end of the Exercise. 3. Pertinently, over the past few weeks, the Command has worked assiduously to prepare in all respect for the Exercise. Let me, therefore, acknowledge the Fleet Commander Western Fleet and his officers and ratings as well as the Local Organizing Committee for their hard work and determination to plan and conduct a successful Exercise. Expectedly, a lot of logistics, planning and coordination are required to put together an Exercise of this nature.
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In this regard, let me particularly appreciate the Chief of the Naval Staff for his guidance and timely provision of the needed logistics that has led to the actualization of the flag-off of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023 that we are witnessing today. 4. At this juncture, let me reassure members of the public that the Nigerian Navy and indeed the Western Naval Command will continue to ensure the necessary conducive maritime environment for legitimate businesses. The challenges in the maritime domain require more collaboration and information sharing thus, we are requesting our partners in progress, particularly members of the public to bring forth credible information needed to enhance security and safety in the maritime Domain. To our esteemed information partners, that is members of the press,
I urge you to give wide publicity to this effort by sensitizing the public on the essence of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023.5. Sir, let me once again welcome you all to the flag-off of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2023. To the participating ship and units, I anticipate utmost commitment and best conduct during the Exercise, I therefore wish you safe sea and best experience as you set sail.”
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