Titled Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2021, the United States has trained 200 participants from 36 countries along the Gulf of Guinea on how to fight maritime crimes.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Vice Admiral Amoama, addressing the closing ceremony of the exercise held in Accra last week Saturday, said there had been an increase in the number of vessels operating within the Gulf of Guinea region, bringing with it a commensurate increase in maritime incidents.
According to him, the organisation of the exercise was important because no one country can fight and win over maritime crimes, hence, requires effective collaboration and coordination.
“Regulatory and law enforcement agencies are thus, under pressure to mitigate these pressing problems such as Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated (IUU) fishing, piracy and armed robbery at sea, illegal bunkering, human and drug trafficking, as well as the transport of illegal goods by sea among others.
“Indeed, these are complex transnational crimes which cannot be dealt with by any single nation alone,” he said. He said this year’s multinational exercise along the Gulf of Guinea to enhance interoperability, as well as build their capacity in the fight against maritime crime.
“It is worth mentioning that amid the challenges imposed by the global Coronavirus pandemic, states along the Gulf of Guinea, together with their international partners, are still poised and willing to come together to fight the menace of maritime crime and incidents,” the CDS stated.
He was strongly convinced, judging from how the Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS was conducted, a giant stepping stone towards creating stronger bonds of friendship for shared peace, security and stability in the Gulf of Guinea had been established.
The Director of Partnership Programme, US Naval Forces, Europe and Africa, Rear Admiral Jeffrey Spivey, said this year’s exercise marks the 10th OBANGAME EXPRESS.
According to him, the first iterations of OBANGAME were predominately communication exercises, testing the flow of information between national and Regional Maritime Operations Centres, which is critically important.
He said the programme had since expanded to include robust at-sea scenarios, where boarding teams, ship crews, maritime special operations forces, medical teams, and even aircraft are exercised.
He described Saturday’s closing ceremony as a testament to the advancement made by the Gulf of Guinea’s navies and coast guards in the areas of regional cooperation, maritime domain awareness, information-sharing practices, and tactical interdiction expertise.
Rear Admiral Jeffrey Spivey noted that maritime trade is key to the global economy, hence maritime security is critical, not only to regional prosperity, but also global prosperity, adding “only when maritime trade freely sails through the Gulf of Guinea, are economic development and opportunities for prosperity possible.
He added that the uptick in piracy and kidnap for ransom activity posed serious security challenges in the Gulf of Guinea area.
“We’ve seen cooperation in Atlantic Africa increase by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Those of us working in the region recognise this progress. And there is the opportunity to make even more progress as the international attention levied on the piracy and kidnapping challenges we spent time discussing in the Senior Leadership Symposium are drawing international attention to the region.
“We should take advantage of this attention and use it to help re-enforce the mechanisms already in place, led by African partners, to bring them to their full capacity. While there is certainly room for continued international presence and assistance in Atlantic Africa, it must also continue to enable our partners and reinforce the foundations of the Yaoundé architecture,” he added.
The post US partners Ghana, others to fight piracy appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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