‘Upgrade maritime institutions to stop capital flight’

Ojutalayo, who is also a Senior Lecturer at the Federal College of Fisheries and Marine Technology, Lagos in an agency report said if well equipped, indigenous maritime training institutions could provide the required training for maritime personnel.
He said, “Why is it that we cannot develop our institutions here in Nigeria; Upgrade them to the level where we can sponsor these people. Let them go to these institutions, get their training and right there in the industry they go and practice?
“You can imagine all those trainings they are sponsoring them for are being paid for; they are not for free. That is capital flight. If they use the money, pump them judiciously with all commitments into the maritime institutions in Nigeria.”
Ojutalayo urged the federal government to upgrade maritime institutions like the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in Oron; you have the Federal College of Fisheries and Marine Technology while describing the training of seafarers by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) in several countries abroad as “misplaced priority” and that the ships in the country might not have the capacity to absorb them.
“You are training young seafarers to go and work on ships; I don’t think they are less than 2,000 that NIMASA has sent out for now. By the time they finish in the next two, three, four years, where are they going to be working? What is the size, the capacity of ships that we have in Nigeria that will accommodate these people?” he said.