A former member of the House of Representatives, Ebikeme Ere, last Tuesday called for the establishment of the coast guard to safeguard the country’s waterways.
Ere, who represented Southern Ijaw Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, said on Tuesday in Yenagoa, that while in the National Assembly in 2005, he sponsored the Nigeria Coast Guard Bill, which passed second and third readings.
Ere said that Nigeria had one of the longest coastlines and inland waterways, which could be harnessed to boost the nation’s economy,
He said it was regrettable that the bill “died a natural death” after he lost his seat in the House of Representative, adding that the coast guard remained a priority for coastal communities in the country. “The coast guard should provide all the rules for all those who use our waterways; they will provide the policies for our waterways; they ought to have the power to arrest, disembark anybody who attempts some kind of incursion within our waterways”, he added
According to him, if established, the coast guard will be in a better position to protect the pipelines of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that run through the inland waterways and assured that with the pipelines being offered such protection, the activities of oil thieves in the Niger Delta would be controlled.
He appealed to members of the National Assembly to revisit the Nigeria Coast Guard Bill and give it an accelerated passage in view of the potential it had to safeguard not only coastal communities but the national patrimony as well.
