August 03, (THEWILL) – Rector of Maritime Academy of Nigeria, (MAN), Oron in Akwa Ibom State, Commodore Duja Effedua, (Rtd.) says that significant infrastructural, administrative and technical improvements in the institution within the last four years have boosted its image and academic status.
Established in 1977 as the Nautical College of Nigeria and upgraded to Maritime Academy of Nigeria in 1988 to produce seafarers for the Nigerian maritime industry and the world at large, the academy had over the years lost its academic reputation due to mismanagement and misappropriation by successive administrations.
Correspondents, who were taken on tour of the Academy on Monday, observed that major upgrades in academic and physical infrastructures have taken place in the school.
Taking journalists round the facility, the Rector maintained that fiscal discipline, administrative and academic restructuring have proved key even as its cadets are now better rated and have become fellows of the prestigious Nautical Institute in the United Kingdom.
Effedua said: “You have seen what I have done with my team. We have done significant things in significant times. When we came, the academy was in a near-collapse state. We are here to add value, not to steal money
“I didn’t get extra funding to do what you have seen here, it is just that I blocked leakages, and when you block leakages corruption will fight back. The corrupt people, the staff from within and those from the outside, are cabals who had benefited from the academy and milked the academy dry.
“I am here to reposition the academy and the International Maritime Organisation was at the verge of shutting down this institution. And if they had done it, imagine the rate of unemployment.”
One of his greatest challenges, Effedua said, remained balancing the academic-to-non-academic staff ratio to reflect the status of the institution as an academic one.
He added: “When I came here I met somebody who read Forestry, what was he doing here? We also met some with fake certificates; some did not do NYSC before they got the job? Some had a poor attitude to work. Our biggest challenges are the sins of the past, lots of court cases.
“On the operational loopholes, we had 575 staff –400 from Akwa Ibom, 23 from Cross River, some states nil, in Federal Character? I never sacked them. What I did was during recruitment, I tried to balance it behind them.
“One of the buildings was abandoned at floor level, even after money was fully released, the rooms were overgrown. I called experts and they confirmed it could carry three floors. We finished the job and someone came out recently to tell us he did the job up to three storeys.
“But this has become the most beautiful place in the state and one of the best in Nigeria. We are producing quality cadets. They petitioned that we have reduced the number, it’s not true, the IMO governs everything we do here.
“Our job is to give you qualitative training. Our graduates now are better than previous sets because we make them do mandatory courses for free. Everything they have is free because the money they used to steal that they can’t steal again is available for use. Over 6,000 petitions have been raised against me.”
The Rector said he had cleared 97 percent of the old debts he inherited, while none of the over 50 court cases against the institution was successful.
The institution, he said had in recent times regained its superior academic reputation while her cadets had begun to be accorded respect in the maritime industry.
He said furthermore: “Our cadets are the best so far for now. We won the award as the Best Maritime Training Provider in 2019. And I am sure the award will remain here forever. The simulators are state-of-the-art and are in billions of naira, for which we did not get any loan.
“Before now our cadets went with one certificate. Now they go with about five to six certificates because the mandatory short courses they would have had to come back and pay for, we are doing it for them free. So they are better marketable than their seniors because they are now members of the Nautical Institute UK and EMEREST UK.
“Equatorial Guinea wrote to us three weeks ago that they want to send their cadets here. About 2,135 professionals from the maritime industry have been trained here in the last few years.
“IMO was so happy with us that they donated 2,000 books to us. The new Engineering Workshop is my next target. The Exhibition Hall will be a kind of museum, where they will cannibalise a vessel in parts to train cadets on the functionality of a ship.”
On Corporate social responsibility, the Rector said that the institution donated three computer centres to three secondary schools in Oron, bought over 500 JAMB forms for indigenes of the area and donated 1,000 litres of fuel weekly to the General Hospital at Iquita in Oron.
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