Nigeria through the Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research, NIOMR has hosted the Liberian National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority in Lagos.
The team is in Nigeria to understudy the fisheries management system in Nigeria, learn the intricacies of research development, and forge collaboration towards enhancing the opportunities in the maritime ecosystem.
The Executive Director of NIOMR, Professor Sule Abiodun said that the collaboration is aimed at galvanising trade interchange, extension services, research and capacity building.
Abiodun explained that the visit is to also monitor Nigeria’s oceans and the potential species in its waters.
He said “The Liberian team came to see and study the way we monitor our oceans and monitor how we carry out our research and more importantly, they are interested in our research vessels and want us to bring it down to Liberia so that we can cruise together and look at all the depth where they can get those species that are related to those ones that we have in the country such as the grunts, the croaker, red snapper, barracuda among others.”
We took them through the whole process, all the departments that we have here in NIOMR, from acuaculture, biotechnology, safety, marine, geology departments and also we also engaged them on how we can support them, train their officials, on artisanal development, as well as how we can also come to Liberia and develop their capture fisheries.
“When I took them to the species that we have, types of shrimps, those areas we can get them, for example, the red shrimps can be found between 21 and 35 metres in this place and they also have it around 45:metres in Liberia,. So, they were interested in us coming to Liberia to actually do the mapping system for them and immediately they wanted to do what is called MoU so that we can both sign through the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.”
He applauded the strides of the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr Gboyega Oyetola for creating the environment that allows for such joint effort to further develop the aquaculture space and support neighbouring countries to develop fisheries management system as well as nautical schools, fisheries academy among others.
Speaking on the impact of such partnership among the African countries, Abiodun explained that it would enhance policy planning, implementation and bolster the process of studying migration patterns, the habitat among others.
He maintained that besides other engagements, Liberia is willing to activate capacity building and Nigeria is up and ready to offer support.
“They want to see a fisheries management system because that department in Liberia is just coming up, so what we are going to do with them is to develop their own base on our own existing policies. Our scientists are ready, because there two things in place now, it is either for us after the MoU with the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, to go to Liberia or they bring the first set of people that we are going to train here and that forms the policy itself. So, once they start we start.”
Liberia’s team lead, Mr Seikula Vannie said that the country is trying to rebrand and restructure the fisheries program and it is hoping to tap into the collaboration with partners and friendly nations in the region to further learn and see their achievements.
Vannie who stressed that the delegation is expected to visit Zambia and Ghana in continuation of its tour maintained that Nigeria has a track record in fisheries management and has a lot to offer the continent to further develop the space.
According to Vannie “We sort Nigeria out because of its achievements in the fisheries management and we think we can learn a lot from them especially when it comes to the Shrimps, Tuna fisheries and industrial fisheries and in the area of aquaculture, the cat fish production and how they leverage technology in fish production. We have come to learn to see all that they are doing differently that we are not doing and see how we can make ours better.
“My biggest disappointment is not knowing Nigeria has research vessel, a few years back Liberia was trying to conduct a fisheries stock assessment, and went running around to Morocco, Guinea Senegal, we combed through the Francophone countries and not knowing that Nigeria has a good advantage, because they speak English and they would have helped us to do our research, today we know that and that is one of our take aways from this engagement.”
He said the country is looking forward to building a stronger relationship with Nigeria, tap in Nigeria’s biggest programmes in Aquaculture, Marine fisheries, fish processing, post harvesting management and see how Nigeria can as well tap into Liberia’s fisheries and open more investment opportunities.
