West African countries have been advised to develop full maritime data and share information about vessel movements to check increasing rate of piracy and other illegal activities in the Gulf of Guinea.
Maritime analysts and West Africa navies in an interaction with the media aboard African Partnership Station (APS) vessel USS Gunston Hall, said coastal countries had to strengthen their surveillance in order to be a step ahead of pirates and other illegalities.
They pointed out that with the current increase in drilling and petroleum exploration activities on the coasts of West Africa, there was the need for vessel monitoring system (VMS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS), which captured data of vessels operating within their economic zones.
The experts and navies were of the view that countries with those systems in place were not attractive to pirates, kidnappers, drug traffickers, illegal fishing, among others in maritime domain.
Ghana and 12 other countries which had those facilities were told to adopt information sharing system to combat any possible threat.
Ghana was also encouraged to ensure that all vessels licensed to fish in its waters were equipped with the system.
The experts further advised Ghana to increase the number of monitoring stations near the coast to help track any vessel that entered its exclusive economic zones to combat any illegalities.
The discussants said countries that had succeeded in combating maritime crime should co-operate greatly through the focus on a common goal of eliminating crime through sharing of information.
Kidnappers and pirates, according to the experts, were making incursion to the Gulf of Guinea due to lack of a strong surveillance system, as well as sharing of information, and gave example of the capture of Chinese fishermen on the coast of Cameroun for a ransom of about $20,000.
That, they said, was how close the threat was to the Gulf of Guinea and gave an example of an incident in which pirates attacked an oil tanker off the coast of Benin in November last year, killing a Ukrainian sailor and stealing the contents of the ship's safe.
Ten oil sector workers, including seven French nationals, were also kidnapped in 2008 by a group calling itself the Bakassi Freedom Fighters in the region.
Under the African Partnership Station (APS), navies from West African countries which include Togo, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroun and Benin were taken through the importance of search directories and search engines and how they work to enhance sharing of information and other domain awareness programmes.
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