Despite a marginal decrease in piracy attacks on commercial vessels in the Gulf of Guinea last year, this in no way implies that the threat of piracy has been reduced, especially in Nigerian waters.
That’s according to Ken Johnson, senior analyst from London-based risk management company, Dryad Maritime. In 2016 Defenceweb reported that “there was a significant increase in maritime crime in the gulf during 2016 compared to 2015”.
Figures released showed there were 49 attacks compared to 20 the year before. Most of those attacks, namely 47 out of the recorded 49, occurred in the Nigeria Exclusive Economic (EEZ) zone, and from what Dryad gathered, violent piracy in the EEZ shows no signs of abating.
Johnson told FTW that “45 attacks on commercial shipping and old industry support vessels by armed pirates were reported from the region during 2017”, yet “no attacks in West African open ocean were reported outside of the Nigerian EEZ in that time”.
“An alarming development,” Johnson pointed out, “was that at times during 2017 larger numbers of crew were taken in single raids, which helps explain that more mariners were taken though fewer attacks had actually taken place.”
To put matters into perspective, he said that 45 vessels had been attacked in 2017 compared to 54 in 2016, “though 25 more crew were kidnapped in 2017 than in the previous year”. This also seems to be in keeping with the growing trend of attacks becoming more violent in the Nigerian EEZ. For fear of being taken hostage, mariners are “locking themselves into their vessels’ citadels as pirates board and loot their ships”.
Pirates are also targeting masters and chief engineers of ships as high-value targets to kidnap for ransom, according to Johnson. So far this year armed pirates had attacked at least 20 ships off the Niger Delta, primarily south of Brass and Bonny, with hostage-taking as the primary motive, he added.
In other areas, such as Cotonou, piracy has dropped dramatically following concerted private sector-supported efforts to effectively curb piracy.
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Pirates are also targeting masters and chief engineers of ships as high-value targets to kidnap for ransom.
