Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Badagry: The Phantom School!

 Last week, the Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi announced that the agency had been directed   to cede the land on which it was building the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in Badagry. The property was returned to its original owner; the Administrative and Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON).

The story of the ‘phantom Academy’ actually started in 2007, when the then President; Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was cajoled into believing that it would help actualize the dream of the ruling party; PDP to capture Lagos state.

By fiat, ASCON was ordered to cede a portion of its expansive premises to NIMASA for the purpose of establishing the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Badagry.  The college grudgingly ceded a corner of its phase 2; tucked in between the staff school and the hostel to the maritime academy. Even though, ASCON grumbled and discreetly protested, no one listened.

Shortly after, contractors moved to site, and bush clearing started and work commenced. But the story of MAN, Badagry ended as soon as the world was made to believe its existence and Lagos indigenes commenced jubilation.

Less than one year after the much-publicized establishment of the academy, it was abandoned, albeit after more than N300Million has been sunk.

I had in 2007 investigated the fate that befell MAN, Badagry and discovered that the contracts were awarded to cronies of the PDP, who shortly after the foundation was laid, abandoned the site.

Even the contact addresses of the contractors were discovered to be shops at Idumota and Simpson Street, on Lagos Island.

Since 2008, the site has been abandoned, even with the two buildings that were put up through funds provided by NIMASA and the Education Trust Fund (ETF).

A few factors culminated in the death of MAN, Badagry, one of which is deceit on the part of government. From all indications, the academy was a political carrot that was dangled in the face of Lagosians to win elections. Secondly, the academy was only contorted as an avenue to siphon money and spread the goodies to the ‘boys’.

Predictably, whatever was left of the dream died with the exit of Dr Ade Dosunmu as the DG of NIMASA. His successors (ignorantly) saw Dosunmu (a Lagos indigene) as pursuing an agenda to bring the Maritime Academy to his own people.

The idea of the carrot called MAN, Badagry came in at the peak of the influence of Chief Olabode George as the Deputy Chairman of the ruling PDP. George, himself a Lagosian, who is desirous of an inroad into the South West, had no problem selling it to the then-President Obasanjo, who also ordered both NIMASA and ETF to release some funds.

In the real sense of it, Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Badagry was never intended to stand. It remains a phantom.

The speed at which NIMASA complied with the directive to vacate the land, may suggest that it really never wanted that ‘burden’. According to the DG, it received the cede order on January 24, and by last week, it had fully given up and complied fully.