NIMASA detains four vessels over Cabotage breaches

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has intensified enforcement of the Cabotage regime, detaining vessels found to have violated the country’s coastal shipping regulations as part of efforts to ensure compliance with local content requirements in the maritime sector.

The operation which focused on vessels of interest identified through intelligence and surveillance profiling led to the arrest and detention of several vessels for nonconformity including MT HOLMES, MT FUJAIRAH ENERGY, JS GRATITUDE, MT BORA within the Lagos maritime domain. Some of the vessels which have regularised their infractions have since been release.

Operation Sea Guardian was conducted as a follow-up enforcement initiative aimed at strengthening regulatory compliance, verifying cabotage obligations, assessing surcharge and levy compliance, and ensuring adherence to applicable maritime regulations. It deployed Deep Blue assets to help track, board, inspect, and verify the operational status of vessels identified through intelligence reports and compliance indicators through effective inter-agency cooperation among NIMASA enforcement personnel, the Nigerian Navy, the Maritime Guard Command and C4i intelligence personnel.

Reacting to the development, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dayo Mobereola emphasised that such operations are going to be more frequent and that defaulting operators would face the full wrath of the law.

According to him, “we had earlier served notice of enhanced enforcement of indigenous participation in our coastal and inland trade and this is exactly what we are doing. It is therefore in the interest of operators to ensure total compliance because defaulters will be visited with stiff sanctions in line with the law”.