Minister raises hope on Navy's war against piracy
By Gbenga Olorunsiwa
DETERMINED to stem the tide of piracy in the nation's waters, the Minister of State for Defence, Roland Oritsejafor, has embarked on a two-day tour of naval facilities and formations in the country to assess their level of preparedness.
While inspecting the facilities in Lagos, the minister boarded the naval ship NNS Oloku accompanied by four other ships, sailing for three hours on the Atlantic Ocean.
After the trip, Oritsejafor confirmed that with the level of things on ground, the navy was combat ready to fight piracy and other related vices.
He told journalists that his trip was to "assess the state of repair of our platforms and preparedness of the Navy," describing the visit as "very enriching."
Speaking on the performance of the Navy, Oritsejafor said: "Performance is a relative term. If you know where we are coming from, then you will say this is 200 per cent performance. You can imagine you have your own car packed up in the garage for just five years and you are doing nothing with it and one day you say you want to start to do something. Taking into consideration where we are coming from, honestly this performance is excellent.
"More importantly we believe in ourselves. We can do it ourselves. We are now forming a culture of maintenance. We have broken the ice.
"The navy is combat ready. Combat ready starts from having the will. We are combat ready because we have the will and our platform is coming back. Yes, we are combat ready but we need more resources," he said.
He also said that with what he saw during the trip, the Nigerian economy is being restored.
His words: "I saw a hopeless situation being turned around. The trip also exposed me to what I will call our economic restoration. On our way to sea, we saw so many ships, foreign ships. I counted on the spot about 36 ships apart from those alongside the port. What does that tells us Why are they coming here There must be activities going on.
"So from what I saw today, there is no doubt that our economy is coming back. But it is your constitutional role to make sure that those changes don't become vulnerable to saboteurs, to enemies, to those who leave their shores to come and take from us."
The minister also stressed the need for the officers to be loyal to the nation, promising that everything would be done to ensure that their needs are met at all times.
