Ministers, experts meet in Accra to review strategies for combating piracy in Gulf of Guinea

Foreign and Defence ministers, as well as experts of the G7++ Friends of the Gulf of Guinea (G++FoGG), met in Accra yesterday to review strategies to deal with the threat of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

They discussed how countries along the gulf could collaborate in naval and judicial interventions to combat piracy within the region.

The need for such collaboration has become more imperative as a result of the discovery of oil in many countries along the Gulf of Guinea and the increasing threat of pirates in the region.

This was underlined by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Hannah Tetteh, when she opened the meeting at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC).

“It is significant to note that whereas a great number of piracies in the Indian Ocean occur on the high seas, the hijacking in the Gulf of Guinea, especially in West Africa, occurs in territorial waters, making it imperative that we work together and review existing international collaborations and mechanisms to find the most appropriate mechanism to deal with the situation,” she said.

 Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea is said to host the biggest offshore oilfields in the world, with an estimated oil reserve of 24 billion barrels, representing 4.5 per cent of world oil reserves.

The transportation of oil, natural gas and other natural resources from the region to other parts of the world has attracted attacks from pirates.

About 117,000 tonnes of oil products, worth $100 million, are said to have been stolen in the region since 2010, while 51 attacks on ships and 30 hostage-taking events were reported in 2013.

According to a 2012 UN Security Council Report, piracy accounts for an annual loss of $2 billion in revenue to West African economies, and as a result of the attacks, the number of ships docking in Cotonou, Benin, has declined by 70 per cent.

G7++FoGG Intervention

At the initiative of Benin, Nigeria and Togo, the UN Security Council, per resolutions 2018 and 2039 adopted in 2011 and 2012, respectively, encouraged states in the region to shoulder the responsibility of securing their coasts and develop a comprehensive regional strategy to combat the threat.

The G8 had tabled the issue of maritime security on its agenda in 2011 and further underlined its commitment in that respect in 2013 with the establishment of the G7++FoGG.

The Accra meeting is the second to be held by the group, three months after the first meeting in Younde, Cameroun.

“The fact that this second meeting is being held within three months after the first is ample indication of the importance the group and the countries that are located along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea attach to issues of maritime safety along the Gulf of Guinea,” Ms Tetteh said. 

She said the threat of piracy appeared to be gaining ground in the region, where high value assets such as oil reserves and metals produced by states had become the targets of pirates.

“As countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana discover large quantities of offshore oil resources, attacks on oil rigs and commercial vessels by pirates are likely to increase if the territorial waters are not vigorously and effectively policed by West African naval forces and effective strategies are not prepared and implemented to minimise such incidents of maritime crime,” she stressed.