Like Phillipines, Nigeria can leverage the activities in and around its oceans, seas, and coastal areas by generating over $70 billion yearly to the nation’s economy.

Director General, National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), Dr Olusola Odusanya, stated this yesterday in Abuja at a workshop on ‘Unlocking the potential of market-ready technological solution for blue economy in Nigeria’.

He said the purpose of the workshop is to sensitive stakeholders on the enormous benefits in harnessing the blue economy. Dr Odusanya noted that the country’s vast under-y blue economy offers huge opportunities for growth and development to overcome its present economic challenge.

Organized by NACETEM, the event drew participants from the Nigerian Shippers Council, Lagos Inland Waterways, Nigerian Ports Authority, Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, National Fish Association of Nigeria, Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists, Raw Materials Research and Development Council among others.

With a coastline of 852 kilometres bordering the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Guinea and a maritime area of over 46,000 sqkm, Nigeria possesses fresh mangrove swamps, creeks, coastal rivers, estuaries, bays, and offshore waters. Eight out of the 36 Nigerian states, with 25 per cent of Nigeria’s total population, share the Atlantic Ocean coastline.

The NACETEM DG explained that sustainable exploitation of resources in the blue economy can lead to job creation, improved food security, tourism and infrastructure development, green energy, among other benefits. He said: “Philippines get $70 billion per annum from its mariners who you find on ships. Hardly do you see a vessel that doesn’t have middle and low-level workers who are from Philippine. There are few Nigerians on vessels across the world. This is just one sector. That is personnel availability.

Imagine if we develop all the opportunities. “For the government to have the vision enough to say this is the direction we want to go, it is commendable. But when it comes to the bolts and nuts, we really need to get ourselves together that as enablers of government policies, we are ready. “This is a very serious area. And it creates new wealth that we did not expect. The truth of the matter is that any income that comes from the blue economy is new income. And we all need new income in this economy”.

In his intervention, the Secretary General, Academic Staff Union of Research Institutes (ASURI), Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku, said the blue economy has the potential to add trillions of naira to Nigeria’s annual revenue if steps are taken to fix loopholes.

In a virtual presentation, Maria Tumai from the United Nations University, Japan, identified the blue economy as one of the best ways government can diversify its economy from oil to boost its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) like other nations which generate billions of dollars from ocean economy yearly.

According to her, Nigeria is losing out in the massive opportunities inherent in the multi-trillion dollars blue economy, even as she tasked the nation to seek economic diversification away from over-reliance on fossil fuel proceeds and look more to the wealth inherent in, around and under the nation’s waters.