Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr Bashir Jamoh, has described the vanguard Newspapers Public Sector Maritime Icon Award as a call to more hard work.
Jamoh stressed that whatever was being done in NIMASA under his leadership to attract the accolades and honour will be improved upon to make all Nigerians and Vanguard Newspaper proud while also justifying the honour.
Commending Vanguard Media Limited, publishers of Vanguard Newspaper for the award, the NIMASA boss said the recognition is a call to increase his level of service.
The DG said the good works of NIMASA which has manifested in inter agency and international collaboration against piracy and other maritime offences resulting in an all time reduction in vessel and crew attacks will be redoubled.
While thanking NIMASA board, management
team and staff for their contributions, Jamoh assured that the Agency will scale up its activities to achieve more for investors, professionals and all stakeholders in the maritime industry.
He said: “This calls for more work, more tasks, and more sustainable success. We have so many things in place, and God willing, within the coming months, we have to double up our efforts to justify this award.
“It is a challenge, and whatever we did before that impressed the selection committee, now we have to double our efforts. For me, I don’t see the award as just an award in name, but as a challenge.
Prominent shipowner, Mrs. Margaret Orakwusi, described Jamoh as a NIMASA DG who came with three decades of experience in the sector and sound maritime academic background which he has deployed to productive benefits for the Nigerian maritime sector.
Speaking on the award, Chairman, Selection Committee Zik Prize 2020, Professor Pat Utomi said the capacity of Dr. Jamoh to have extensively managed the restructuring, reformation and repositioning of NIMASA earned him the prestigious award.
“The Deep Blue Project and the Blue Economy initiatives Dr. Jamoh continues to champion have brought massive gains to the Agency and the nation’s economic diversification goals,” Utomi said.
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in its recent report had disclosed that piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, which had in recent times become the global epicentre for sea piracy, fell to the lowest since Q2 2019 after the Dr. Jamoh started enforcing the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure, also known as the Deep Blue Project.
