By Sumaila Ogbaje

The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Adm. Emmanuel Ogalla, says the Nigerian Navy performs dual role of protecting the nation’s territorial waters and policing of maritime environment.

Ogalla said this on Monday when members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Navy paid an oversight visit to the Naval Headquarter in Abuja.

He said the navy was one of the most difficult arms of service because of its offshore activities at sea, in terms of resources required.

According to him, the Constitution specifies that the Nigerian navy will be charged with that responsibility in the maritime domain.

“And when I say the maritime domain, I mean all the coastal zones, the internal waters, the exclusive economic zone of Nigeria, the territorial waters, and so on.

“And when we talk about the exclusive economic zone of Nigeria, we are talking about 84,000 square nautical miles.

“If you translate it to square kilometres, it is about 290,000 square kilometres, which is about one-third of the nation’s landmass.

“Considering also the fact that the Nigerian Navy being a dominant player in the region, the entire Gulf of Guinea falls almost into our area of interest.

“In addition to that military rule, which is specified in the constitution, the Armed Forces Act charges the Nigerian Navy with what we call coast guard functions, or on the other hand, sometimes we call it our policing roles,’’ he said.

The CNS said the policing role of the navy had in recent time, become the one that was most prominent being the one that directly impacted on the economy and survivability of the Nigerian nation.

He said the service had been faced with lots of challenges in carrying out the responsibility because of the extent of its operational requirements.

According to him, some of these challenges include inadequate resources to be able to perform these roles and maintenance issues, considering that Nigeria lacks industrial capacity.

“Most of our maintenance requirements and procurement requirements are foreign-based and looking at the current issue with the economy, that becomes a very serious challenge.

“We are hopeful and we have always seen the good effort and cooperation and support from the National Assembly in overcoming some of these challenges,’’ he added.

He thanked the national assembly for its continuous support to the navy to be able to perform its constitutional functions.

The Chairman, House Committee on Navy, Hon. Yusuf Gagdi, agreed with the naval chief on the challenges and needs of the navy, saying the service played key role in safeguarding the nation’s blue economy.

Gagdi said the visit was part of the legislative duties of the lawmakers to ensure that government institutions like navy were made to be accountable for how taxpayers’ money had been expended.

He said the visit was a platform to have an interface with navy and to see how resources allocated to them were being utilised.

“We are here to follow up the taxpayers’ money, to equally ask questions, where we feel things are not done correctly, and if we do that, it doesn’t mean we are undermining any institution,’’ he said. (NAN)