West Africa -Golf of Guinea States - Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cameroon

westafrika In 2016, I participated in a one-month Maritime Safety Evaluation Mission in the West African states of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast of the Gulf of Guinea, which was mandated to create a project definition. The Mission also visited the ICC International Co-ordination Centre in Cameroon in Yaoundé, in charge of the whole Gulf area and in Douala the MRDC Coordination Unit for Zone D, which is the only area to have its own permanent operational units in Malabo represents, a prototype to other coordination centres. The actual project area, however, were the first named 5 states. I was responsible for the IT and communication technology in this project.

In particular, the coast of Nigeria is a major focus of international piracy, with approximately 80% of the security incidents recorded in 2015 in Nigeria's national and international waters in face of the country.

The adjacent map shows the zone classification of the Gulf of Guinea and the states assigned to these zones. The zones correspond to the states between ECOWAS and ECCAS. Each of these zones has a headquarter (MRCC) - mostly manned by naval and police officers who are supposed to coordinate international affairs and information manually. A central clearing office is located in Yaoundé - Cameroon (ICC), but was not activated at the time of the visit - only the infrastructure was partially available.

The Zone E and the states Ghana and the Ivory Coast - belonging to Zone F - were included in the project. In these states, the executive offices and responsible persons of all involved institutions and selected enterprises were visited. These were beside the respective navies the following:

NIGERIA