Immediate Past Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo (rtd), has said that the Navy initieedated several operations in order to curb maritime crimes within the country’s territorial waters, while he held sway.
He made the statement during the pulling and sailing out ceremony in his honour yesterday at the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Quorra, Apapa.
He said: “I activated diverse operations to curb maritime crimes within the nation’s maritime domain. The recent being “Operation Dakatar da Barawo,” which is the Hausa expression for ” “Stop the Thieves”, in collaboration with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, to curb crude oil theft, which is yielding tremendous results.”
He explained further that the diverse operations have helped strengthen the Nigerian Navy presence at sea towards dominating the space through aggressive patrols to deny the economic saboteurs freedom of action.
He said: “This increased presence is instrumental to the decline in criminal activities within the nation’s maritime domain and the Gulf of Guinea.
“These serve as veritable force multipliers, ensuring that Nigerian Navy patrols in the 21st century are intelligence driven, cost effective and result oriented for enhanced socio- economic development of our dear nation”.
Whilst fielding questions from journalists on his successes, the 21st indigenous CNS, said: “Our nation is endowed with a professional and vibrant navy which has continued to defend her territorial integrity.
“The Nigerian Navy has been rated to resolve invaluable resources in the nation’s maritime environment and projects the country’s image globally.
“Our Navy is a service of global repute and stands out which we can be proud of.
“The Nigerian Navy operates very highly on technology for its operation and this has it to be more results oriented and cause effective.
“In the sense that we don’t need to deploy most of our capital ships up there at sea in the meantime, keep pushing for the maritime offenders for the comfort of all the operational commands.”
He added that the, “Nigerian Navy can vector any maritime offending ship or human beings, be them pirates, Sea robbers and all that to be able to undertake arrest and prosecute them through the instrumentality of the former Act.”
