Will recent naval exercises in the Gulf of Guinea lead to significant improvements for maritime security off Nigeria?

At the onset of the dry season in the Gulf of Guinea, piracy patterns from previous years suggest increasing threat levels for shipping operations. The area has been the subject of much debate with BIMCO's CEO calling out the "complete absence of effective law enforcement" and concluding that the region's current capacity building is having "no effect whatsoever". Is he right? 

In his webinar on the gulf of Guinea from 22 September 2020, Senior Analyst Dirk Siebels clarifies:

“Piracy attacks continue to be a major concern in the West Africa region, and every attack is one too many. I agree that the problem can be addressed, but the problem of seafarers being taken as hostages cannot be addressed in isolation. These attacks rely on criminal groups having access to infrastructure on land, which is only in place because kidnappings are a problem across the Niger Delta. Overall, it is first and foremost a problem of law enforcement on land and, in turn, requires issues to be addressed that have developed over decades. No solution is possible within just a few months.”

Dirk Siebels continues:

“Merely comparing numbers of hostages does not provide an accurate picture. Many incidents that are reported now would not have been part of official statistics a few years ago. The reason is, that Nigeria – as well as other countries across the region – are increasingly aware of maritime security problems and are trying to address them. Knowing the extent of the problem is a vital step to address it. Increasing efforts are also highlighted by several cases in recent months during which naval vessels provided a quick response after attacks during which the crew of the respective vessels were able to assemble in the citadel.”

CEO Hans Tino Hansen agrees:

“Risk Intelligence has been pointing to the risk in the Gulf of Guinea since 2006/2007 long before any other organisations started to seriously talk about it - and also during the years of Somali piracy. This is also why we have consistently stated that the risk is high but not really increasing over a period of 13 years where the number of incidents have been around 100 +/-

The main difference is the composition of incident types have changed over the years. This means that we have always believed the problem was “out of control” as even one serious incident is one too many, but we have all the time realised that this is not an issue of major concern for Nigerian governments due to their own priorities of national problems that have a higher impact on national politics, economy and security. This leaves it more or less to neighbouring countries, countries with some vested interest in the region and international organisations to try to deal with the problem. As everyone knows it can only really be dealt with at the source.”

For more information on the situation in the Gulf of Guinea, please see this resource page: