NPA Sets to Revive Moribund Training School, Partners NIS in Training 250 Workforce

…As Institute Sets to Hold AGM March 3rd

By DAPO OLAWUNI

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has indicated interest in partnering the Nigerian Institute of Shipping (NIS) in reviving its moribund NPA training school which has capacity to train 250 port workers at a go.

Acting Managing Director of NPA, Muhammed Bello-Koko stated this on Tuesday when the executives of the NIS payed a working visit at the NPA headquarters in Marina, Lagos.

The NIS has however announced that it is set to hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on March 3rd 2022 at an event that would usher-in a new set of executives to pilot the affairs of the institute for next two years.

Speaking at the meeting which was exclusively covered by DAILY TREND NEWS, the Acting Managing Director, Bello-Koko said that NPA is already reaching out to various training institutes that would assist in training her staff.

“The need for development and acquisition of skills and manpower development are key things we want to focus on this year.

“We have a training institute, it is a place we have abandoned but we just renovated it and it should be able to train about 200 to 250 persons at any given time in different course.

“We have asked our human resources department to come up with a curriculum for training. One of the thing we observed in NPA is that they have one of the best trained set of staff and most of them believe in that knowledge.

“We want to encourage those that are about to leave and those that have left, the plan is to invite them to come in and train some of our colleagues.

“We have also written to some of the training institute and we will reach out to you also and we will have advisory from you in terms of how NPA can run this training” Bello-Koko stated

While commending activities of NIS, he acknowledged that the institute had always conducted its activities and elections peacefully without any sort of rancor.

“There are so many institute that have individualistic tendencies and I appreciate the fact that your institute had an election that brought you people in, even though you are moving out.

“The relationship between NPA and the institute is what work together to collaborate to move the sector forward, irrespective of the fact that shipping and shipping lines are being monitored and regulated by the shippers council at the end of the day, NPA is at the top, middle and bottom of whatever happens in the maritime industry.

“There are no flag carrying ships owned by Nigerian but it does not mean that we will not find ways to control the actions and inactions of shipping lines and also shipping activities.

“So, your advise as an institute would be welcomed at any given time, you don’t need an appointment, just call on us.
We appreciate that relationship that we have had over time and I promise that we will do whatever we can to support you in anyway we can” he said

Speaking earlier, President of NIS, Capt Tony Onaharigho said the NIS as an institute was established since 1983 and that it has churned out professionals working in higher cadre of the maritime industry.

Onaharigho who was represented by his Vice President, Mr Segun Olufioye Johnson said the NIS AGM and award would see the NPA Acting Managing Director being confered with a Fellowship award, among other dignitaries in the sector.

Also speaking at the visit, another member of the NIS visiting team, Prof Iyiola Oni, Professor of Transportation and Logistics at University of Lagos (UNILAG) noted that the NIS have been collaborating with the UNILAG where she runs different programme as relates to ports administration and management.

“We believe strongly in capacity building and manpower, through training. This has actually endeared other professionals to see us as solutions providers in terms of professionalism.

“At this point in time, we believe that NIS will need more solid collaboration with NPA in terms of research and innovation, consultancy and others.

“This is because at the University of Lagos, we are pursuing what is called internationalization, whereby we have a Memorandum of Understanding, association with large number of institutions especially in the UK, Canada and US.

“We want a situation whereby we want to seek for advanced knowledge which we share with all those colleagues. Nowadays we are talking about ICT application, coordinate and multimodal transportation and that is why university of Lagos has now grown beyond teaching ordinary transportation.

“We now have a centre for multimodal transport studies, whereby all the aspect of transportation, rail, road and others would be taught so that we can be able to make the best use and optimise the system” Prof Oni stated

Also on the NIS team is Barrister V.E Ibharalu who solicited NPA’s support towards the coming NIS AGM in March 2022.

Others are; Dr Babatunde Samuel, Dr Taiwo and Kehinde Oshigbo, and Chairman of NIS AGM planning Committee, Capt Folajimi and Registrar of NIS, Mr Sampson Chima.