The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin, has stated that the Nigerian Navy has adopted a double-pronged strategy towards acquiring ships to carry out her operations.
Usman disclosed this when the Minister of State for Defence, Col. Augustine Akobundu (rtd) visited the Naval Headquarters, Abuja, in continuation of his familiarisation tour of the military services.
On the one hand, he said, ships are being acquired from some friendly countries and on the other hand, the NN is complementing the foreign acquisition with domestic construction of ships.
He said that the success of this two-pronged approach was in the commissioning of four ships into the Service of the NN in February 15.
“The NN also received five interceptor boats (K-13 Boats) early this year that were constructed in the Netherlands. On the domestic front, the NN constructed its first 31-metre Seaward Defence Boat, which was commissioned by his Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan GCFR, on 1 Jun 12.
“The construction of a second Boat is at advanced stage. In the same vein, the NN Shipyard Port Harcourt is presently constructing an ocean sea going tug boat”, he revealed.
Additionally, Jibrin said, six NN ships including NNS Ayam, Barama, Brass, Ekun, Ogue and Yola are currently undergoing refit at the NN Dockyard, Lagos.
The Naval Chief expressed Navy’s confident that its local refit efforts will contribute to NN capacity to patrol the nation’s vast maritime environment.
“It is worth mentioning that the Nigerian Navy has just signed an agreement with Privinvest, a ship building company in the United Arab Emirates to come to Nigeria and partner with us, so that we can upgrade the Naval Dockyard Lagos in order to begin local construction of capital ships which will meet international standard”, he disclosed.
Jibrin informed the Minister that Privinvest has the capacity of constructing ships of Air Craft Carriers class and other assets for effective service delivery, which can guarantee adequate security in our maritime environment.
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