IMION seeks shift from maritime policy to execution
Lagos, Oct. 2026 (TBL Africa) The International Maritime Institute of Nigeria (IMION) has called for a shift from the ratification of maritime treaties to their effective implementation across ports and waterways.
Its Director-General, Rear Adm. Thaddeus Udofia (rtd), said this in a statement signed by the Head of Communications and Marketing of the institute, Dr Bashir Ambi, on Monday in Lagos to commemorate World Maritime Day.
Udofia said that the call aligned with the 2026 global theme, “From Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence”, which emphasised the need to move beyond regulatory frameworks to practical implementation.
He said that high-level policy frameworks could only translate into economic benefits when supported by specialised frontline capacity.
Udofia said that knowledge without execution was a stranded asset, adding that Nigeria’s maritime success depended not merely on signed treaties but also on effective security measures and digital optimisation across ports.
Udofia said that IMION congratulated the Federal Government on its diplomatic and maritime safety achievements, including Nigeria’s return to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Category C Council after 14 years.
He said that another milestone was the lifting of the 12-year port security restriction, known as Condition of Entry, imposed by the United States Coast Guard on vessels arriving from Nigeria.
Udofia said that the achievement followed the removal of Nigerian vessels from stringent entry conditions, supported by the multi-agency Deep Blue Project, which had recorded zero piracy incidents for more than three years.
He said that IMION, conceived by the Nigerian Navy as a research-based centre of excellence, had trained more than 500 maritime stakeholders and executives across various blue economy disciplines.
He added that the institute had established strategic learning pathways and knowledge-sharing networks with international maritime institutes, academic partners and global strategic institutions.
He identified the institute’s operational partnership with Admiralty University of Nigeria as a notable milestone, saying it was designed to introduce joint executive programmes to translate maritime intelligence into practical field operations.
He listed IMION’s strategic interventions as an executive course on strategic leadership, a port logistics revolution summit, a five-year port transformation plan and a five-pillar plan to revive fisheries.
Other initiatives, Udofia said, included advanced intelligence training in maritime security, subsidised blue economy courses for media practitioners and future-oriented curricula aligned with revisions to the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) Convention.
He said that IMION remained committed to promoting empirical research and technical expertise needed to translate executive mandates into practical maritime outcomes for national development.
He said that the institute congratulated the Federal Government and maritime practitioners on World Maritime Day, while calling for seamless institutional collaboration to advance maritime excellence in Nigeria.
