By Adeleye Kunle
With the successful fight against piracy on Nigerian territorial waters, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has begun efforts to remove the country from the War Risk Insurance, WRI, classification.
The classification allows vessels calling at ports in affected countries to charge a high insurance premium due to the high risk of piracy in the territorial waters.
Dr Bashir Jamoh, Director-General of NIMASA, revealed the move to declassify Nigeria, saying that the agency has contacted international insurance bodies about the continuous listing and collection of WRI from vessels calling at Nigerian ports, despite a reduction in the level of piracy on the nation’s waters.
The NIMASA chief also stated that there has been no pirate attack on any vessel in Nigerian territorial waters in the first half of this year, H1’22.
“Last month, after we were removed from the piracy red list, we are no longer the most dangerous waters to trade on in the entire world,” he said. If you recall, last year on World Maritime Day, I was the first to raise the alarm that there had been a significant reduction in piracy in Nigeria and that we would no longer pay the World Risk Insurance fee.
“So what we need is for the insurance body to devise a yardstick that will place Nigeria on the red list for paying world risk insurance.” We investigate the criteria and why the judges assigned us to that level; we will know where we went wrong and where we went right; for where we went right, they should use that as an avenue to judge us and reduce the cost due to the reduction in piracy.
“They claimed we had been on the list for over 25 years and that a short period of time could not be used to remove the World Risk Insurance, adding that we should not bring a few examples.” We completed our report, and they informed us last month that their Executive Council meeting for the second quarter had concluded, and that by the third quarter in September, they would consider other countries, including Nigeria. They requested that we present our short, medium, and long-term plans that will persuade them that we have permanent and sustainable reasons to maintain the yardstick of the drop in piracy so that they can remove the World Risk Insurance. “This is why I said that hopefully by the end of September this year, we will be able to rejoice and Nigeria will see a significant reduction in the freight rates we pay.”
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