The Nigeria Navy has warned criminal elements involved in oil bunkering and other marine criminal activities to steer clear maritime domain or face severe consequences.
Real Admiral Muhammed Adamu Muye, Commander, Eastern Fleet of the Nigerian Navy, issued the warning at the conclusion of the “Exercise Sea Guard 2024”, carried out within the territorial water of its area of responsibility, on Saturday.
The 72 hours exercise was carried out by the combine fleets of both Eastern and Central Naval Commands as a preparatory to the Chief of Naval Staff 2024 annual sea inspection.
Real Admiral Muye warned those involved in oil bunkering and other maritime crimes such as piracy and kidnapping to stay off maritime domain.
“For those that still have the tendencies to embark on oil bunkering, my advice to them is to keep off from the maritime domain. We will try as much as possible to curb illegal bunkering to the nearest minimum. Those that still want to embark on this criminal activities should steer clear because no matter how long it takes, the hand of the law will get across to them.
“Before we commenced the exercise, we had an objective. I can assure you that the objective to a large extent has been achieved. We have gone for the exercise for the last 72 hours, and we have seen some few lapses that we will try to correct before the Chief of Naval Staff annual sea inspection that will be coming very soon.
“This exercise is meant to curb illegalities within the maritime domain and I think to a large extent we have been able to achieve that objective. The personnel have been brushed up for what they might been lacking before. To this end, I want to believe that the next exercise we are going to go for, which is the Chief of Naval Staff annual sea inspection we are going to perform better than what we did in this exercise.
“The Nigerian Navy as a service we will continue to learn day in day out. The exercises of this nature give us opportunity to brush up things that we might have forgotten in a while and you find out that during the formation we were able to identify the areas we had initial lapses but at the end of it we were able to correct it that is one of the main objectives of the exercises of this nature.
“The Nigerian Navy constitutional role is to protect the maritime domain and I think the Navy has been doing that we want to assure the populace that within the available resources we will try our best to ensure the maritime domain is safe for maritime activities.”
Earlier, the Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Naval Command, Real Admiral Saheed Akinwande, had expressed concern over continued security threats in the nation’s maritime domain despite all efforts put in place by it and other sisters agencies.
Akinwande listed some of the threats as crude oil theft, sea robbery, piracy , kidnapping and human trafficking, saying they have undermined economic activities within the nation’s maritime domain.
He said despite all efforts put in place by the Navy and other security agencies to curb the menace, it still persists.
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