The Chief Executive Officer of Employment Clinic in the maritime sector Princess Aderonke Kosoko has called on the president elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Lagos state governor Babajide Sanwo Olu to look into the maritime sector with keen interest has the bulk of nation’s wealth emanates from there.
The CEO said that proper harmonization and harnessing of Nigerian Maritime infrastructure, employment, appointments and policy frameworks for the sector will fully achieve its potentials.
The Employment Clinic Boss Princess Kosoko, made this call during a News Conference recently in Lagos.
She tasked the President-elect, Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to appoint experts that would turn the nation’s maritime industry around for good..
She appealed to Tinubu to look into creating job opportunities and addressing infrastructure deficit in the maritime industry.
Kosoko, also congratulated both Tinubu and Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State for emerging victorious in their Presidential and governorship polls, lamented the sordid state of decline in the nation’s Martine sector in the last decade, a situation she said, called for urgent intervention.
Gov. Sanwoolu
President -Elect, Tinubu
“The entire industry is looking forward to you for complete revival.
“There has been a dichotomy between the state and the federal. Now, we want to ensure that the centre aligns at some levels because if Lagos works, Apapa, for instance, is affecting the whole nation, if it works, if Lekki works, other states will work.
“That is the reason why some people look forward to Tinubu as president; it’s because of the work he did in Lagos. He unplugged Lagos state from the string of the Federal Government successfully during his tenure as the governor.
She observed that since 2010, in the course of different administrations, a whole lot had happened in the maritime industry.
“Many of the decisions about why things are not working in Apapa was due to government policies”.
“Lagos, being a literal state with three port cities, cannot be ignored. First and foremost, we laid a foundation which is to connect the dots at the governmental levels.
“The second is employment and that was what pushed us into the Project One Million Jobs which had a link with government.
“The employment part of the industry is a segment, likewise infrastructure, policy, appointment issues. If they are not fused together, the maritime economy is not going anywhere.
“So, the President-elect and the governor of Lagos State should understand that there is need to pay attention to maritime economy,” she said.
She noted that the Project One Million Jobs was launched in 2013 and worked with the Chamber of Shipping.
“In 2014, they worked with cadets; in 2015 there was an election and then the maritime industry started declining.”
She said that the project was on course and had the Minister of Transportation backing .
“We have been mandated to interface with the seven agencies under the Ministry of Transportation and have spoken with the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Shippers’Council (NSC) and others.
“We do not want to go on the journey alone; we need the media along and that is part of the reason we are having this session,” she said.
To boost employment potentials in the sector, Kosoko disclosed that her organisation has introduced the Maritime Conversion Programme (MCP) that would encourage more Nigerian graduates to the maritime sector and thus help improve career prospects.
According to her, the scheme, in its first phase, would take care of 5,000 graduates within Lagos, and with plans to ensure that the phase starts in earnest
She said that if the scheme had 50 young people interested in career in maritime, media and communication for instance, they would be linked with experts that had experience in those fields, adding that the graduates would also go through three to four months training courses.
“At the end, they cannot be jobless,” she said.
“We had paid a visit to cadets at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron, and asked for their data to know the number that would be salvaged for job opportunities.
“If we have graduates from those places, and they are connected to the right private sector, the private sector is always willing to listen. They will help with jobs,” Princess Kosoko explained.
