How
I transformed MAN, Oron into a world class institution- Okpo
Joshua Okpo, is the Rector
of the
Nation’s oldest government-owned
nautical school, Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron,Akwa
Ibom in a media chat with some select few journalists in Lagos recently he
explained how he was able to transform the premier institution into a world class
Marine institution, how unemployment can be solved in the maritime sector and
loads of other germane issues in the Academy. BABALOLA YUSUF ABIOLA was there.
Aside funding which
has been like a mantra for all the rectors before you came on board, what do
you view as most challenging aspect of the job since you came on board as
rector?
First of all the basic challenge I encountered running the
academy was the challenge of bringing peace to bear on that land because when there was no peace I was brought
in and if there would not be peace then I have to leave. But since it became a
big challenge I have to go about for peace to reign so what did I do or what
happened? Like I said it is not by my power, it is not by my myth.
As the rector I was instructed to expand the stakeholders’
interests for more sense of belonging. I ensured that the management staff was
increased from five to thirty nine ,to give room for everybody from head of
units to head of department, directors of school, to have a say collectively on
how the academy is run.
How academy money will be spent, how academy policies will
be articulated and directed. Everybody in management has been notified. The
challenges like I said is the same with the peace process, which is to ensure
that the immediate operating environment is at peace with the town so that
teaching and learning will be a normal routine.
When the academic environment became a theatre of war, where
bloods were being spilled, when finger nails were cut off, these things will
not allow education to thrive. Today the academy is a safe place, the workers
are having their ways, construction work is going on, and the casual labourers
from various communities are working together, eating together and worshipping
together. The peace of the environment is now more appreciated.
After the academy became a weeping child arriving from all
kinds of frivolous petitions and false stories. The academy which is supposed to be given
positive coverage to succeed in our national interest suffered some very
negative angles to media coverage, which was untrue. We had to encourage the
community relations strategy which I put in place so that host community indigenes
will benefit a bigger bite of the academy’s coffers legitimately. We give
scholarships as part of efforts to assist the community, we provide transformers
for electricity, and we try to provide jobs for them by awarding contracts too.
In summary, the challenges was to tackle the problem of inter
and intra clash businesses, the clash between the rich and the poor, the clash
between the political class and the less privileged ,the clash between the
senior staff and the junior staff of the academy, the clash between the
privileged and the less privileged, those that has godfather, so to look at
all these things put together, it therefore means that we need diplomacy for us to stoop to conquer because arrogance
will not solve the problem ,their own initiative quotient will not solve the
problem ,but with the diplomacy we tried ,to the extent that we became the
strong and the weak,the firm and the infirm and that was how we were able
address the challenges. Today by the grace of God the academic stress is reducing,
though we cannot satisfy everybody some lament to the press to make a fight but
I am giving a general assurance that whatever is available, we put on the table
and when you put on the table, it will be done in such a manner that we will
save for the rainy days and when we save for the rainy days, whatever will go
for the community gets to them. If all requests come at the same time, it is
not proper.
Admission of cadets into the institution is done by batches,
we believe it is better in batches and
that is why last year we had three batches, we have finished with the second batch,
third batch payment will commence in June 2013. On the issue of admission,
emphasis is on quality, not numbers. Right
now as I speak with you we have evolved a style of admission strictly based on
available space. We cannot take more than what we can confidently manage
because with the upgrading in place there is no classroom that an instructor in
nautical school, for example will be coming to train more than four cadets on
the simulator at a time.
If you are having
twenty cadets on one simulator training session, none of the foreign instructor
will take the academy seriously. If you take the marine engineers for example, you
cannot put more than ten in a class but when National Board for Technical Education(NBTE)
says twenty and you are putting a
hundred and twenty in class is very wrong and this is not acceptable and the
best thing to do is to stop such acts of low quality crowd now.
As the rector of the academy, how would you
rate the response of NIMASA to the 5% remittance for the academy?
On the issue of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency
(NIMASA) 5% for the academy, I want to use this medium to say that I am very
grateful to the present director general of NIMASA, that is Mr. Patrick
Akpobolokemi. I am very grateful to him because I have never worked with any
other D.G. since I was I appointed as rector of the school and from the history
of the past, MAN Oron has never had it so good as it is with Patrick
Akpobolokemi and I want every journalist to help me to thank the D.G. of NIMASA
where ever you see him, tell him I say that he has done us well. We in the
academy are very grateful.
I keep on saying that without Akpobolokemi and his management,
the story you are hearing today you would not have heard about it and by the
grace of God, as he has kept on encouraging us we have been able to address
some of the challenges we had. I also want them (NIMASA) to help us by supporting
our initiative to get sea time for our cadets through a consultant because they
have been awesome all the way and we are very hopeful of the fact that the ship
that the agency want to provide for our cadets will help reduce the problem of
sea time so once again the press should help me to thank the director general
of NIMASA for his support.
How do you hope to
address the issue of sea time for the cadets of the academy?
We decided to pursue the problem of the mariners, because in
the academy, the core mandate is how to train the mariners that is the nautical
science and mariner engineering cadets. We have initiated our move to get
employed onboard ships in Europe and South Africa and what we are doing for now is to engage a
consultant Messrs Bramah to enable us get the cadets practically trained, about
one hundred mariners from nautical science cadets and one hundred and fifty
from marine engineering departments are
to go onboard vessels.
We are going to pay about N8 to N9 million for each of the
cadets for a period of 18 months for the sea time. So with that we will handle
issue of the sea time challenge for our cadets. Although we have made proposals
to the government for their contribution but that has not been met and we are
optimistic on the possible take off of the project. However in our own
initiative we have decided on our own on the issue of sea time for our cadets.
We are talking with some of the shipping companies we have
good relationship with, to help us by granting our cadets sea time because
management has decided that we are going to commit some internally generated
funds and revenue to start a programme whereby the best and brightest ten or
twenty mariners are given the opportunity on board sea going vessels. However I
have not mentioned cadets from electrical engineers.
I have been given the concept that since the academy cadets
have been regimented that they (ship owners) will prefer them to join on board
their ships for them not to suffer any form of piracy and that the place they
will love to come and train is maritime academy. Though we have been arguing on
the price because they said N9 million and they also said that the money is not
meant to pay the ship owners rather the money is meant to sustain the cadets, their upkeep and their working materials then
pay a stipend to the consultant.
The ship owners out of their free will are willing to ensure
that they give them stipends to maintain the palliatives. Some of them have to
restructure their cabins to accommodate some the cadets and that is why for a
ship to give you space or take onboard 150 cadets especially when it is a cargo
vessel, you will know the sacrifice that stakeholders have done and if we can
train them for 18 months for sea competence then they can now go for their
captaincy because the certificate we issue will be axxepted worldwide.
So that the issue of training Nigerian cadets will be a
thing of the past, now the quality we are yearning is the one we want
government to fund but for government to be convinced we are going to use our
little resources maybe N15 million and see how we can start the project,
monitor it and ensure that as it is working we can now communicate that we have
put things in place.
What is the nature of
admission into MAN Oron?
When you want to admit you place advert and by September
2013, we are going to do another to start another program for the upper session
because this session is to start on the 23rd of June. We have five courses
that we offer at National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) levels,
the maritime transport, nautical science, marine and electrical engineering,
boat and ship building technology and we have post graduate program for marine
engineering and maritime transport. Now after we have advertised, we pay N5,000 payable to designated Bank then collate
all the entries and when that is done we now invite them for common entrance
exams.
We have seven centers nationwide. We have Abuja centre, we
have Yola centre, Calabar centre, Enugu centre, Port Harcourt centre and then
Oron centre, now Enugu centre has been moved to Port Harcourt centre for some
issue. like I said about 7,500 persons applied, after that we now invited 4,000
and the 4,000 we invited was to enable and ensure that people have been given
issuance notice and be assured for another time or chance to be able to perform
because the score, which is just like JAMB score line was very low and the
average score line was 47%.
If you want to find out people that scored 65 and above were not even up to 2,000 to come
for it and we don’t have enough people to select so we decided to bring it down
to ensure that we have up to 1,000 people to expand more applicants chances of
securing admission. Maybe by the time they were writing the exams, their
attentions were divided or they were not listening or maybe they were not
conscious of what they were doing.
Other examiners were selected from various places like NPA,
NIMASA, Shippers Council, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy and other outfits in
other to groom them. We place emphasis on the quality of youths we get admitted
to ensure that our standards of academic and moral discipline are sustained and
that social vices such as taking of hard drugs, hooliganism, and cultism do not
find their way into Nigeria’s number one maritime training institution.
What is the academy
doing in ensuring that people or cadets would be able to build ships in the
country and how can that be achieved?
We are working on a new curriculum- boat building technology,
which is a new initiative as naval architecture. This area requires a lot of skill and
collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders and we are ready to partner
with them to achieve this.
We need to interface with other jetties, to interface with
power and steel sector, we need to interface with the NNPC, with even the ship
owners because in our own view some people find it difficult to interface but
it takes two to tangle.
For instance when the academy wanted to go to Malmo for
affiliation we know that the academy cannot do it alone, so we went to the ministry
of transport. The Honourable Minister of Transport insisted that we cannot get
the best out of World Maritime University without first reaching the
International Maritime Organisation (IMO) therefore whatever they are going to
do must carry the blessing of all Nigerian stakeholders and we must follow due
process and that anything that will give a boost to manpower development must
be done through collective effort. Every agency should work together to achieve
a collective goal.
All effort must be put together to develop Nigeria because
Nigeria cannot work if we don’t have a synergy and that is the way it should go.
How can the issue of
employment be tackled after the cadets might have graduated?
First of all you look at the population of Nigeria as very
important to answer that question. What is our population? When you look at our
shoreline through the Gulf of Guinea from Senegal to Gabon you will agree with
me that there are a lot of economic activities going on there. There are so
many things that happens there, the fishing industry alone is such that can
create a good market so if one can bring that aspect up and now have about 5000
people that have sea competence or captains that can command vessels I can tell
you that one single policy that Nigeria will make by asking NNPC to insist that
before any vessel is allowed to carry Nigerian cargo such vessel must provide
jobs for our indigenous maritime professionals.
That such vessel has Nigerian seafarers onboard. Then you
will see that the stakeholders will be rushing after Nigerians and we will
provide the backing. What we are doing is that we have refused to build the
capacity to fill the competency requirement that will increase our
acceptability. Let give credit to Chief
Isaac Jolapamo for his efforts in this direction. He has stood firmly for the
call for a training ship of the academy, he has stood firmly for the graduates
of maritime academy and he has been at the forefront of that crusade and I want
Nigerians to commend him because he has been a father and a mentor.
The parallel
existence between Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme run by NIMASA and
the training of cadets in MAN appears conflicting, what is your reaction to
that?
This is like asking yourself why there is more than one
security outfit in Nigeria, if the remaining of Lagos state senior officers is
embarking on the creation of state security nothing stops the Igbo officers or
the Calabar senior officers to carry out the same experiment on the issue of
high charges or the issue of corruption, we are talking about how they can put
energy together to make sure that we train Nigerian cadets adequately. NIMASA seafarers’
development programme is also concerned with how to get cadet, our Nigerian
cadets abroad for sea time after formal training.
As we speak NIMASA does not own any ship yet therefore if
they expect to send cadets abroad for sea time as way of development, nothing
stops a state government in Nigeria from doing same by sending its own people
to go abroad for sea time to lessen the burden on NIMASA thus in that regard
NIMASA has done well and we are trying to do well too. It is not conflicting or
contradictory, it rather compliments. The more the better for our youths and
the country.
What is the academy
doing to ensure that swimming pool is made available for cadets?
As part of our efforts to improve the quality of training
being offered to our cadets, we are poised at ensuring that all our graduates
are good swimmers and the pool is an important infrastructure in achieving this
goal.
Let me start by saying that contract for the pool, has been
awarded since 2012 and the consultant has been mobilized to site and we also
like it to be done so that it will function for learning and recreation. The
pool is going to have a pavilion, race course,
squash court within same vicinity and we will light up the place so that there
will light for 24 hours.
