EXCLUSIVE: WRI; Stakeholders Raise Committtee To Confront Cartels Over $500m Charges

After losing $1.5 billion, a committee has been set up to confront the Protection and Indemnity (P&I) Club and other insurance cartels that hide under the guise of piracy to impose unjustifiable $500 million annual War Risk Insurance premiums on ships and cargoes destined for Nigerian ports. .. Read ..Full.. Article.. .

The committee was jointly constituted by the government and maritime stakeholders after the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN)’s 3rd Annual Maritime Lecture (MAMAL 2025), which focused on ending the WRI premiums imposed on vessels calling at Nigerian ports.

The committee was mandated to coordinate engagements with local and international stakeholders with the aim of securing the suspension of WRI premiums, which they said had become unjustifiable in the light of Nigeria’s improved maritime security.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Dr. Pius Akutah, had maintained that the premiums were no longer defensible, pointing out that Nigeria has recorded four years without major piracy incidents.

He attributed this to the combined efforts of the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), and the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy through initiatives such as the Deep Blue Project and enforcement of the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act.

The Chairman of the lecture, Engr. Greg Ogbeifun, charged the industry players to ensure that measurable results are achieved before MAMAL 2026, stressing that sustained advocacy must lead to tangible outcomes. Also, a former NIMASA DirectorGeneral, Capt. Omatseye, criticised the London-based Joint War Risk Committee, describing its continued classification of Nigeria as a high-risk country as discriminatory.

According to him, while Nigeria is charged war risk rates of up to 0.65 per cent, countries with weaker security profiles such as Pakistan pay as little as 0.25 per cent. Also, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dayo Mobereola, represented by Mr. Victor Iloh, reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to sustaining maritime security gains and to supporting collective advocacy aimed at achieving the removal of the charges.

The eight-man committee is chaired by a maritime security expert, Mr Emmanuel Maiguwa, while Yinka Onigbinde will serve as secretary. Other members veteran shipowner, Engr. Greg Ogbeifun; Flag Officer Commanding Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Gregory Oaemen; former Director General of the NIMASA, Temisan Omatseye; President of MARAN, Mr. Godfrey Bivbere; Special Assistant to the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr. Bolaji Akinola and Protection and Indemnity (P\&I) Club consultant, Ms. Ejide Shodipo.

Recall that the Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Gregory Oamen, had said that the increasingly changing security dynamics in Nigeria’s maritime environment and the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) had warranted the Nigerian Navy (NN) to devise and implement several strategies to support her policing efforts.

This, he noted, involved the acquisition of modern state-of-the-art platforms and collaboration with other maritime stakeholders for enhanced NN policing operations. In the early stage of NN operations, Oamen explained that maritime policing operations was focused on interdicting criminal activities, thereby enhancing maritime security.

According to him, the effort also contributed to the zero incidents of piracy since Nigeria was delisted from piracy-prone countries in the last quarter of 2022, adding that NN had leverage maritime collaboration with major stakeholders to improve its policing operations to curb maritime incidents for enhanced maritime security.

However, Oamen explained that the prevailing global perception of Nigeria’s maritime environment was largely based on a period of heightened piracy activity in the late 2010s, a data-driven analysis of recent years tells a completely different story.

In 2020, he noted that the GoG saw a total of 84 attacks on ships, with 135 seafarers kidnaped for ransom, stressing that the GoG experienced about 50 per cent increase in kidnapping for ransom between 2018 and 2019 and around 10 per cent increase between 2019 and 2020.

However, with the renewed efforts by the NN to increase presence within the GoG, Oamen explained that far reaching success had been recorded. Based on the IMB’s Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships Report, he said that Nigeria had 33 in 2017, 48 attacks in 2018, 35 in 2019, 35 in 2020 and 6 in 2021, no attacks in 2022, two in 2023 and one in 2024, stressing that number of reported incidents had plummeted, with the latest data from 2022 showing a complete absence of piracy and kidnapping for ransom while just one attempted case in 2024.

He said: “This remarkable success is not a coincidence, it is a direct result of strategic, sustained and intelligence led operations.” Oamen listed 14 new vessels acquired in the last decade, and..  Read . .More