Nigerian Navy - Maintenance
Between years 2003 and 2007, the NN vigorously pursued the refit and maintenance of ships through the ongoing local refit program. However, due to lack of readily available spare parts, the program has yet to achieve the dramatic impact of resuscitating most of the non-operational ships. Though the modest achievement attained so far has provided additional platforms needed for patrols, the NN still lacks adequate platforms to effectively police the vast maritime environment. By the year 2010 the average age of ships in the NN was 25 years, without having undergone any mid-life refit. The ships were deteriorating by the day owing to age, poor maintenance culture and dearth of skilled technical manpower. This led to the low operational state of the ships.
Fundamentally, funding is a challenge that cuts across other Navy issues. The twin problems are those of insufficient funds and untimely releases. Beyond acquisition cost of ships, the reality of maintenance to ensure ship availability must be considered in allocation of funds. Typically, 10 percent of acquisition cost is supposed to be allocated to maintenance annually. This is about N50.4 billion of the estimated cost of Nigerian Navy ships put at N504 billion as at 2007. However, in practice, the funds released for maintenance of ships in the Nigerian Navy is very inadequate.
The challenges to Nigerian Navy Operations in a technologically under-developed environment are enormous. They include lack of proper maintenance, deteriorating support facilities, and lack of synergy with local research institution for adaptive technology. Others are lack of skilled manpower and inadequate funding. The present maintenance concept levels; user maintenance, shore maintenance by Fleet Support Group (FSG) and Fleet Support Unit (FSU), and dockyard maintenance is not being implemented to the letter. This is sometimes due to lack of working tools, lack of spare parts, and inadequate number of qualified technical personnel. Other reasons include lack of commitment by the personnel, inadequate records of defects, and inadequate supervision of maintenance work by the ship's command.
Adequate logistic back-up is important for any navy. The logistics command in the Nigerian Navy must have an outfit which ensures that naval stores, POL products and visualizing are made available to ships at the right time and in adequate quality. However,the logistics branch is handicapped due to the following problems: inadequate fuel dumps, inadequate shore electric powerand water supply, lack of operational fuel and water barges.
Adequate maintenance planning is necessary to forestall incessant resort to adhoc maintenance activities. To address this challenge, the Nigerian Navy in 2007 set up a committee of all branches to produce a ship maintenance operational circle (SMOC). The committee could be upgraded to a standing team for sustenance and continuity in planning and coordination of relevant in-house and external departments and execution of the plans. Furthermore, for adequate foundation, the committee could be assisted initially by consultants from Germany where many Nigerian Navy ships were acquired from. Also, local human capacity building can be achieved with the German consultants working closely with local facilitators and consultants. Importantly, the SMOC will afford the Nigerian Navy the opportunity to set a realistic ship availability target. Regarding implementation of themaintenance plans, emphasis must be placed on maintaining engineeringstandards. This could be attained by independent certification of jobs bymanufacturers' representatives. In addition, while the STU insists on properconduct of machinery trials and workups after major maintenance activities,the R&D directorate must re-sensitize personnel through ship to ship lectures and demonstrations on PMS.
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