Nigerians Now Have Faith in NIMASA-Dakuku Peterside
The agency was previously not recognized in the International Forums and was regarded as a corrupt agency, lacking dignity and integrity due to the high level of piracy and illegalities being done in that aspect.
Dr. Dakuku Peterside the former Director-General of NIMASA, in an interview with State of the Nation, on the 21st June 2020 disclosed his achievements, challenges, and innovations he brought into the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.
Dakuku in his statement said:
“If You talk about My biggest achievements, they are so many, but I don’t know where to start from but I will start from somewhere. Recall that by March 2016 when I was appointed the rating of NIMASA was within 4 and 5% approval in the country and by industry stakeholders.
“NIMASA was perceived as a corrupt agency, an inefficient regulator and one that constitutes a burden instead of in facilitator to businesses. By the time I finished serving My tenure, the approval rating of NIMASA had become between 75 and 80% meaning Nigerians now have faith in NIMASA’s regulatory agency.
“There was a total turnaround of the agency, the agency was respected at home and abroad. Indeed, stakeholders believed that indeed the agency is repositioned to deliver. The public’s perception of NIMASA has changed 360 degrees.
“Before we got to NIMASA, at many international forums they were not taken seriously, under 4yrs NIMASA became number one in many of the indices in Africa, such as in Safety records, passing of a dedicated law for anti-piracy and I can go on in many spheres.
“We are now reckoned with globally, that’s another and for the first time in the history of the agency we consistently carried out promotion exercise as part out a total multiplication package for the staff of the agency, we did that consistently throughout our 4yrs stay in the agency.
“Now we developed a lot of plans, we instituted a knowledge driven organization where permanently we transfer knowledge from older generation of staff to the younger generation of staff. We created four different platforms to do that namely:
· Knowledge transfer section.
· DG’s half-day seminar.
· We rigid our training program.
· We created the incentive to encourage people to Share knowledge.
Ayooluwa Joshua
Dakuku Peterside, how can you compare your tenure at Nimasa with that of Dr Patrick Akpobolokeme, who built Maritime University? Stop embarrassing us.