Kofi Ampeah Woode
Ghana’s Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) – Rear Admiral (R/Adm) Issah Adam Yakubu, made an expert exposition on the caption; THE GULF OF GUINEA MARITIME REGION AND ITS SECURITY CHALLENGES, under the Maritime Security and Transnational Organised Crime (MSTOC) Course, run by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training.
The second two-week MSTOC Course of 2023, commenced at the Training Centre of Excellence (TCE) on 6 November 2023, with Admiral Yakubu – who is credited to be one of the designers of the Course at its inception – taking participants through the module as the foremost Facilitator.
The CNS commenced his lecture, stating how the world’s economic security depends on the safe and secure use of the oceans, which offer states a network of sea lines of enormous importance to their security and economic prosperity, supporting commerce among nations and hence, a vital contributor to globalisation, with ninety per cent (90%) of world trade done thereby.
Stating that the Sea is a barrier to, and a conduit for threats to the security of trade and people, he dished out a few statistics indicating that the worldwide economy via the Sea (the global Blue Economy), is valued at more than United States Dollars (USD) $1.5 trillion annually, providing over 30 million jobs, and a vital source of protein to over 3 billion people.
He further asserted that States have an enormous responsibility for the effective control and governance of the oceans, howbeit, they are unable to effectively surveil and police the waters, due to their vast size, hence leaving the oceans vulnerable to blue crimes with their actors.
Narrowing in on the Gulf of Guinea (GoG), he stated that countries in the region are confronted by developmental challenges, which are exacerbated by low state capacity, violent conflicts, electoral crises, and weak state institutions.
He went on to present an overview of the GoG Region, which has the following countries; Angola, Benin, Cameroon, la Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
Endowed with an Area of 2.3 million Square Kilometres (Sq Km), a coastline of 6,000 Km, a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about USD 866,343 billion, with 45% of Sub-Saharan African GDP, the GoG has 70% of Africa’s Oil Industry, over 50.4 billion fishes, 5% of Global Oil Production of 5.4 million barrels per day, 25% of Africa’s Shipping activities, and 20 seaports.
Outlining Maritime Security, he stated that it covers sea power, maritime safety, blue economy, and human resilience, ranging from security studies, international trade, environment protection, and climate change to global governance.
With all the goodness and capabilities of the waters, R/Adm IA Yakubu averred that the oceans are more vulnerable, and fast becoming incapable of sustaining human development, for which reason, the United Nations (UN) incorporated Oceans and Seas into the UN Agenda 2030, under Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 14: “Conserve and sustainably use the Oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”.
There are crimes against mobility in the GoG, targeting the movement of goods and shipping on the sea or in the vicinity of the sea, alongside acts of Piracy (Piracy is the most visible symptom of insecurity) including armed robbery and associated crimes.
In response to these threats, pragmatic maritime strategies have been developed under the Yaoundé Code of Conduct and its Architecture established in 2013, to provide a comprehensive framework fostering inter-cooperation among agencies, and enhancing institutional capacity, to combat maritime threats, including all other illicit maritime activities.
A key component of this architecture is the Interregional Coordination Centre (ICC), structured into two regional groups – CRESMAC and CRESMAO – with five sub-operational maritime zones.
The Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Multinational Maritime Coordination Centre (MMCC) Zone F, part of the sub-zone, includes countries such as Burkina Faso, la Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, with the MMCC Zone F having been at the forefront of combating maritime threats within the GoG.
Admiral Yakubu said data from MMCCs under the Yaoundé Architecture support the fact that the GoG continues to be dangerous for seafarers, as pirates in the GoG, are well-equipped to attack beyond 250 nautical miles (nm), and are unafraid to take violent action against innocent crews.
There also are prevalent transit crimes, which include activities in which the sea is used, primarily as a conduit for criminal enterprise, rather than the main site of the enterprise itself, which concern the movement of illicit commodities or the illegal movement of people, the Ghanaian CNS said.
He stated that the perpetration of maritime crimes are made easy because the oceans have no hard borders, customs posts or checkpoints, with their vast size, additionally making it challenging to surveil effectively, amidst looser and ambiguous systems.
Some of the transit crimes include: Human Trafficking and Smuggling, Smuggling of Weapons, which include Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), Illicit Cargo and Goods, with the volume of narcotics transiting the GoG estimated at about 50 tons per year – a hub of cocaine trafficking worth almost USD 2 billion a year.
Environmental Crimes are also prevalent in the GoG, and they involve activities that cause significant harm to the marine environment, taking place in the context of human activities that engage and interact with the oceans, the most prevalent environmental crime being Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing – losses in the Region is estimated at 790,000 tons a year, resulting in economic losses of about USD 2 billion a year.
R/Adm Yakubu called for Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), quoting the International Maritime Organization (IMO): “Effective understanding of anything associated with the global maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment”, to define MDA.
He called for the numerous actors involved in maintaining maritime security in the GOG, to invest in capacity building, joint operations, information sharing and coordination across the naval forces within the Region.
Emphasizing maritime security as a shared responsibility, the Admiral stressed the need for local, sub-regional, and international collaborations and partnerships, military-to-military engagements, joint exercises, contact groups, Memoranda of Understanding, and industry best practices.
He concluded that different doctrines and training manuals hamper effective communication, coordination and collaboration, and thus, there is the need to develop regional and national maritime security strategies, to ensure harmonisation, and convergence of policies and action.
By Kofi Ampeah-Woode
