Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, the Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), has said that the Nigerian Navy has the capacity to build and repair world class ships.
Ogalla stated this in Port Harcourt on Sunday shortly after inspecting the building of some naval ships, boats and other projects that were under construction at the Naval Shipyard Limited (NSL), during his working visit to Rivers State.
He was conducted round the facility by the Admiral Superintendent, Naval Shipyard Limited, Port Harcourt, Rear Admiral Etop Ebe, accompanied by the Commander Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Pathfinder, Commodore Cajethan Aniaku and other senior officers during the inspection tour.
During the tour, the CNS inspected the Naval Shipyard Administrative Block, two hundred ton slipway, Naval Shipyard clinic, and refurbishment of three house boats.
Vice Admiral Ogalla also inspected the construction of Ibom Ferry (Ship) which is being fabricated for the Akwa Ibom State Government, and 10 flay button assault boats for naval operations among others.
In a chat with journalists after the inspection, he said, “I’m here today on a working visit to the Naval Shipyard Limited, to look at some of the projects that they have engaged in, mostly ship repair and ship building. Of course you know that there is no Navy that can do well without effective ship building and repair building capability.
“So, I came to look at some of the activities they are engaged in, and am quite impressed.
“Inside the Naval security station which is houseboat that has been there for some years, some of them are dilapidated, so many of them have been reactivated here.
“I also inspected the ferry that we are constructing for the Akwa Ibom State Government, it is almost seventy percent (70%) completed.
“Also, we have ten operational boats that were given to them to build, they are about ninety percent (90%) completed.
“A lot of rehabilitation is ongoing here. We are also dredging the waterfront to create more rooms and enable our ships to berth, because lack of adequate jetty is one of the problems we are facing here.
“Another project under construction is our slip way, the project is also about 90 percent completed.
“All these projects are being done locally here by the shipyard. And what they are doing here is not only contributing to our fleet operational readiness, it is also contributing to the maritime industry in the Niger Delta and Nigeria as a whole, and even the West African sub-region.”
The Chief of the Naval Staff further stated that the Navy has already made significant progress in building ships that beat world standards at the Naval dockyard in Lagos.
He however, expressed worries over the setbacks facing the Navy including lack of encouragement and patronage in the industry.
“We are doing all these to create awareness. We have the local capacity to build these ships.
“The Nigerian Navy has been into local ship building for quite some time now. We have built three standard warships, and we are currently constructing two more Standard Seaward Defence Boats (SDB) in our dockyard in Lagos.
“Many of the industry players do not know that these capacities are here and they go ahead to bring in these equipments from abroad at a very high cost, sometimes ten times the cost of what we use to build them here.
“We are also encouraging the shipyard and the dockyard to go into improved publicity to make their work seen by the industries so that they will know that we can do these things here.
“Many people go abroad to buy these equipment that we can produce and that is as a result of lack of knowledge, but we are overcoming such problems.”
Ogalla added, “Yes, we might not be at the highest level yet, but we are very close. With the scope of our operations here and at the level of offshore patrol vessels, the capacity of what we are building here beats world class standards.”
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