I've gone through stress, without regrets - Afolayan
I think that the Navy, as an arm of the forces, has an important role to play in the life of this nation. The Navy has three distinct responsibilities. Apart from the military roles of the Navy, we have the policing role and the diplomatic role.
In this interview with YOMI ODUNUGA, the outgoing Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Samuel Afoloyan, speaks about the many ‘thorns' on the path to re-positioning the Navy. Excerpts:
What legacy would you want to leave for the Nigerian Navy after your 36 years of service?
I think that the Navy, as an arm of the forces, has an important role to play in the life of this nation. The Navy has three distinct responsibilities. Apart from the military roles of the Navy, we have the policing role and the diplomatic role. The three are very significant. But, to the Nigeria of today, the policing role always comes to the fore. The reason is that because the well-being of this nation depends on oil and gas, at least 90 per cent of our earnings, we have to protect our territorial waters. Most of these resources are sea-based. But it is sad that as a nation, we are very ignorant of our maritime environment. At the time I took over this office, the Navy was going through some kind of frustration. Like they say, ‘the Navy is ship and ship is the Navy'. A Navy without a fleet cannot hold its head high. It cannot claim to be a Navy. Maybe it is intentional or maybe because the nation doesn't understand the necessity of maintaining a Navy for her well-being, somehow, the Navy was allowed to depreciate to the state that it could no longer send ships to patrol our waters. Yet, the resources of the nation abound there. Apart from oil and gas that I mentioned earlier, Nigeria has the best shrimps. Every week, foreign ships, trawling in our waters, leave our sea to Europe. The shallow water of the delta is a good haven for shrimps. And without Navy being able to look after these resources, you can now understand why our economy is suffering. When they say that Nigeria is corrupt, many people don't understand what they mean by that. The amount of crude oil being stolen from Nigeria and being sold in the black market portends grave danger to the economy. But I am happy today that things are changing for the better.
How do you mean?
When I came in, the priority was to get the Navy back to its constitutional duty. And that is to get the ships back to sea. I started with the boats. We repaired 26 boats out of the 30 that we pulled out of the water. But one thing is in our good book - training. Nigerian Navy has been training all over the world in the past 50 years or so. So, it is not because we don't have the human resources, but other required elements were not there. During my first two years as CNS, we couldn't make any meaningful progress until Mr. President agreed that we should look inwards and repair our boats because I told him that we are capable of doing that. We have a good workshop, we have a dockyard, and people are trained. Thank God, we were able to get our boats back to sea. Of course, they have limitation. We can only use them within the riverine areas and immediate water coast. But the achievement was that we were able to reduce up to 50 per cent of the cost. I later convinced Mr. President that we should look inwards to work on all our capital ships. Of course, sceptics said it was impossible. They said we always carry the ships to foreign ports to repair. But what made it impossible for us to embark on such ventures was when we invited one foreign contractor to look at our ships. The experts told me that NNS Aradu would cost about N19 billion to repair. If the Ministry of Defence does not get that in a year, how do I, as CNS, get such money or encourage the Federal Government to put up all that money on a single ship when I have about 30 ships? It does not just make sense. So, after the success of the boat, the next thing was to go on and repair our capital ships. I mobilised Nigerian engineers, both retired marine engineers in the Nigeria National Shipping Lines and civilians who have related discipline.
Has the President accepted your letter of retirement?
He has accepted it. I wrote it last year. He deferred it. Of course, he only referred to the letter of last September and said he has now granted it. And I believe he did it in good faith, because I have said that this seat is not a seat where you will sit forever. Today, behind Admiral Adelawon, I am next in the length of service. I have been on this seat for over four years. I have the problem of those stealing our crude to contend with, I have the problem of administration, problem of ship and repairs and problems of running after funds on a daily basis. So, I know that I have done my own and I am satisfied to have contributed my own quota regardless of how other people see it.
If the EFCC decides to probe your tenure, are you confident of coming out clean?
In fact, a paper published the story that the EFCC is probing me. But I'm not scared of that. Mr. President knows how much he has given to the Navy. And I was once in the PTF and I handled over a thousand projects and I was the one who handed over to this government detailing all the happenings there with all the records. I'm very cautious with records.
