The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Richard Mills, on Friday paid a courtesy visit to the Western Naval Command and the Regional Maritime Capability (RMAC) Centre.
The visit was aimed at strengthening the bilateral relations between the countries.
Speaking during the visit, Mills said that deepening the partnership with the Nigerian Navy was important in ensuring that the Gulf of Guinea would be as free as possible from maritime crimes.
“We want to reduce to the barest minimum maritime crimes such as piracy, oil theft, Unregulated Unreported Fishing among others.
“We have been talking about how to strengthen our partnership and what more we can do to enhance security in the Gulf of Guinea,” he said.
The ambassador said that one of the ways to ensure that the partnership was strengthened was through the conduct of maritime exercises between the two navies to improve coordination.
“A lot of things are working well; our intelligence sharing, our training capabilities among other things.
“Some new assets and equipment that will be helpful towards improving maritime security was shared with me and we will be looking at that too,” he said.
Similarly, the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC), Western Naval Command, Rear Adm. Mustapha Hassan thanked the U.S. for their cooperation with countries in the Gulf of Guinea.
Hassan said that matters were discoursed on how to improve partnership and work together toward making the global maritime economy much better placed.
“One of the focus of discourse centred on upgrading the sensor capabilities of the Regional Maritime Awareness Capability system.
“The system is working and in good order but an upgrade will put us in a better state among other leading nations of the world,” he said.
The FOC said that the U.S. was already planning another Obangame Express- a maritime exercise which would help prepare the Nigerian Navy for eventualities in the Gulf of Guinea.
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