The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on Monday declared as totally unacceptable the increasing wave of kidnapping for ransom of seafarers and ships in the Niger Delta and tasked the Federal Government to take urgent steps to address it.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Babagana Kingibe, who however responded on behalf of the government assured the specialised U.N body that the government had the capacity to contain the development in the Niger Delta area, and would do so shortly
Addressing an international conference on �Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea at the Abuja Sheraton Hotel, the IMO Secretary General, Efthimios Mitropoulos, also tasked the authorities to see the need to cooperate with other regional states and governments in the task of curbing violent crimes against ships and seafarers, stressing that there was very little that Nigeria alone could do.
Mintropoulos said the country as a matter of urgency must adopt communication, cooperation and coordination strategy to curb the menace.
Government has however that it has the capacity to fight and curb the ongoing waves of attacks against ships and seafarers in Nigerian waters.
Alhaji Kingibe while saying that the country would leave no stone unturned to restore peace to the nation�s domestic waters, however, maintained that there was no war in the country that should elicit the kind of fear the international community was alluding to.
�We are not at war with any nation. Nigeria is not at war with any nation. What we have in the Niger Delta is a case of a people neglected over time; and was making efforts to attract attention to themselves.
�But, they are not at war with their brothers. And Government is doing everything in its power to address it� Kingibe said.
He, however, warned those he described as making trouble in the area with �criminal intention� to desist immediately, as government would soon come down heavily on them
He assured the international body that Nigeria would do whatever necessary including extending the frontiers of cooperation and collaboration with other bodies to ensure the safety of both the ships operating in the nation�s waters as well as the seafarers in them.