By Paschal Emeka
The Provisional Committee of the proposed Nigerian Coast Guard, PC-NCG, says Nigeria’s inability to establish a Coast Guard is not the fault of present leaders, but a 170-year structural problem that began in 1748 with Britain’s Marine Department.
In a statement issued Sunday in Abuja, PC-NCG Director of Communications & Public Affairs, Dr. Kiyaramo Piriye, quoted Chief Executive Capt. Noah Ichaba. He traced the problem to the British Marine Department, which combined civilian safety and military defence under one roof from 1748.
Capt. Ichaba said the 1914 amalgamation and creation of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, in 1955 continued the same pattern. Mariners from the old Marine Department were seconded to NPA and kept performing mixed duties of port operations, coastal safety, and security.
“When the Nigerian Naval Force was established on March 26, 1956 through Sessional Paper No. 6, those same ex-Mariner personnel were transferred to pioneer the new Navy,” Capt. Ichaba recalled. “The Navy was tasked with both military defence and civilian maritime law enforcement, safety, and security, while no independent Coast Guard was created.”
He added that this colonial-era design created overlapping mandates and institutional rivalry that persist today. “Every attempt to legislate a Coast Guard has run into the same wall: a system built to fuse roles instead of separate them,” he stated.
“Present-day lawmakers, ministers, and agencies inherited this confusion. They did not create it,” Capt. Ichaba said. The statement noted that after the Marine Department was dissolved in 1887, Nigeria got the NPA, Inland Waterways Authority, and Nigerian Naval Force, but no separate Coast Guard.
“The resistance we see today is not about individuals. It is about 170 years of entrenched power dynamics and role confusion built into the system,” Dr. Kiyaramo quoted him as saying. He stressed that this colonial blueprint never separated civilian maritime safety from military defence.
With piracy, illegal fishing, oil theft, and drownings threatening Nigeria’s waters, PC-NCG said structural clarity is the solution. “In most coastal nations, the Navy handles military defence while the Coast Guard handles civilian duties like maritime law enforcement and search-and-rescue. Both agencies complement each other,” Capt. Ichaba said. “Until we address this 170-year structural error, Nigeria’s blue economy and coastal lives will remain at risk. The National Assembly has to pass the Nigerian Coast Guard Act now.”
