Nigerian Navy fights Nigerian Merchant Navy for supremacy

Posted by admin Armed Forces, Headlines Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

There seems to be a battle for supremacy between the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Merchant Navy with the former accusing the latter of impersonating the naval personnel by wearing its uniform.

The cold war which has lingered for some years reached its peak last week, when the Nigerian Navy clamped down on the commandant of the Nigerian Merchant Navy, Commodore Aderemi Olatinwo, allegedly on the order of the Chief of Naval Staff.

In a statement made available to the media by Commodore Olatinwo, he cited several efforts earlier made by the Nigerian Merchant Navy to reach out to the Nigerian Navy on the need to understand the complementary role of the organisation, which he said the Nigerian Navy did not honour.

According to Olatinwo, the Nigerian Merchant Navy has been in existence since 1914 while the Nigerian Navy was in 1956 seconded from the Nigerian Merchant Navy to form what is today known as the Nigerian Navy. The Nigerian Navy, he said inherited some of the uniforms, structures and equipment of the Nigeria Merchant Navy.”

Olatinwo who said, ideally, there should be a symbiotic relationship between the two as it is the case in other countries, lamented that, “there had been a frosty relationship between the Merchant Navy and the Gunnery Navy which should not be ordinarily, if there is an understanding of each other’s comple mentary roles.”

-Tribunewp_posts