Peterside
The
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has commended the
efforts of the Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration
and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, to develop the
maritime sector and increase its contribution to the
economy. El-Rufai said Dakuku’s appointment as
Director-General of NIMASA was one of the most skillful and opportune
decisions by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in its
drive to revolutionise the maritime industry. He spoke at the weekend
in a chat with journalists at the Kaduna State Government House.
The
governor said Dakuku had brought his wealth of experience and
pragmatism to bear on the maritime sector, occasioning many reforms
that have produced significant growth in the industry within a short
period.
According
to El-Rufai, “Dr. Dakuku is a vibrant young man who has brought a
lot of reforms to the maritime industry. This is what you get when
you appoint young and knowledgeable people and this appointment has
brought a lot of gains to this administration.”
The
governor said with the length of the Nigerian coastline, the country
deserved more benefit from maritime. He added, “I know NIMASA, in
collaboration with the Nigerian Ports Authority, headed by my former
Chief Of Staff, Hadiza Bala Usman, is doing a lot to decongest the
Apapa ports and we are proud of what they are doing so far. But we
must also look at ways of building new ports to decongest Apapa.”
El-Rufai
also commended the Buhari administration’s first term Minister of
Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, whom he said had
revolutionised the entire transport sector under difficult
circumstances. He said Kaduna State was one of the beneficiaries of
Amaechi’s vision, as the Abuja-Kaduna rail line, whose completion
the former Rivers State Governor ensured, was now one of the busiest
rail lines in the country.
He
stated, “I do not recall any Minister of Transportation that has
achieved as much in so little time, under very difficult
circumstances as Hon. Amaechi has done. Kaduna State is one of the
beneficiaries of his effort, because the Abuja-Kaduna rail that
started more than 10 years ago was completed under his tenure.
“It
was a single-minded focus on completing projects of benefit to the
country that enabled that, and today, that train connection is one of
the busiest and most patronised in Nigeria. For the first time
Nigerians are seeing the advantage of having a functional rail system
and he was also very influential to the appointments of
Hadiza
Bala Usman and Dakuku Peterside and the maritime sector is
better for those strategic appointments.”
Dakuku
was appointed as Director-General of NIMASA in March 2016. Under his
watch, a lot of reforms have been initiated, including the strategic
New Cabotage Compliance Strategy, which has created more employment
for Nigerians in the maritime sector and significantly grown the
maritime sector’s contribution to both the Federation Account and
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
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