An Investigation of Maritime Piracy and Its Implications to the Development and Sustainability of the Port Harcourt Seaport, its local communities and the Niger Delta region in Nigeria.

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Within the last decade, widespread ramifications of maritime piracy occasioned by insurmountable piratical attacks in the Gulf of Guinea region have been evidently seen in the Nigerian territorial waters with hallmarks on strategic areas in the Niger Delta region, Nigeria – the Port Harcourt seaport, its local communities, and the Niger Delta region. It is against this backdrop that this study investigates maritime piracy and its implications for the development and sustainability of the Port Harcourt Seaport, its local communities, and the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. Incorporating maritime piracy and sustainability in the literature review showed the social and economic impacts piracy has had on the development and sustainability of the region.
It is qualitative research where relativism was applied as the ontological position and subjectivism as the epistemological position. Furthermore, Interpretivist paradigm which allows issues to be studied in great depth was also applied to this study. The research approach was abductive approach, and qualitative design was employed as the research design. A semi- structured questionnaire was filled by (27) participants – agency workers, port workers, and ex-cadets working in the Port Harcourt seaport, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and the local communities. Thematic analysis was applied in the data analysis and the themes thoroughly explicated.
The findings indicate that unemployment and poverty are the two key factors responsible for maritime piracy in the Nigerian territorial waters. Findings also showed that the key aspects of seaport activities in the Port Harcourt seaport have been negatively impacted with a concomitant effect on the local communities’ businesses and Niger Delta region in Nigeria. Another important finding is that there is a rudimentary knowledge of sustainability in the Niger Delta region, and the drive to take proactive steps to annihilate any threat to the sustainability of this region is almost non-existent. The implications are that these affected key aspects of the seaport have significantly reduced the efficiency of the seaport and the attendant impacts are seen in the local communities and the Niger Delta region.
The study concludes that the development and sustainability of the Port Harcourt seaport, its local communities, and the Niger Delta region have been undermined due to piracy. As long as piracy persist, real development and sustainability will continue to elude the affected areas. It is recommended that pragmatic approaches should be applied to exterminate maritime piracy in this region. Firstly, effective education and jobs be provided to residents in this region to help deter them from criminal acts. Secondly, a more sophisticated anti-piracy war should be waged against sea pirates in the Nigerian territorial waters. Lastly, a collaboration between the Nigerian Navy and their international counterparts will go a long way to countervail the activities of pirates in the Gulf of Guinea region.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	English
Supervisor	Lise Hunter (Director of Studies (First Supervisor)) & Lijun Tang (Other Supervisor)