Editor's Choice
Global Maritime Welfare Charity Expands Wellbeing Tracking Beyond the Ship’s Rail with New Shore-Based Index
Global Maritime Welfare Charity Expands Wellbeing Tracking Beyond the Ship’s Rail with New Shore-Based Index
The Mission to Seafarers launches the ShoreHI — a first-of-its-kind tool to measure happiness among maritime professionals on land
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News Correspondent
For nearly a decade, the maritime world has had a window into the emotional and psychological state of seafarers at sea. Now, a global welfare charity is turning that lens landward — and the people who manage Nigeria’s ports, crewing agencies, maritime law firms, logistics companies and shipping operations may soon find their own wellbeing under scrutiny.
The Mission to Seafarers has announced the launch of its Shorebased Happiness Index (ShoreHI) — a new welfare measurement tool designed to capture the wellbeing and job satisfaction of maritime professionals working on land, for the very first time.
The ShoreHI mirrors the structure and methodology of the internationally recognised Seafarers Happiness Index (SHI) and will consist of a 10-question, 1-to-10-scale survey targeting those employed ashore in maritime roles — including ship management, port operations, maritime law, insurance, logistics, finance, and technology.
The move has particular relevance for Nigeria’s maritime sector, where tens of thousands of shore-based professionals — from NPA staff and freight forwarders at Apapa and Tin Can Island to NIMASA regulators and shipping agents — work under significant pressure with little formal measurement of their workplace welfare.
The key objectives of the ShoreHI are to generate industry-wide insights that enable data-driven improvements in workplace culture, retention, and performance, and to provide robust comparative data to support better welfare policies.
Steven Jones, who founded both indices, explained the rationale behind the expansion. “We have spent years measuring happiness at sea,” he said. “Now it is time to measure the wellbeing of the people ashore whose decisions shape life onboard. If we want happier, safer, and more supported seafarers, we need to understand the pressures and realities on both sides of the ship-shore divide.”
Ben Bailey, Director of Programme at the Mission to Seafarers, said the new tool completes a picture that the SHI alone could not provide. “The Seafarers Happiness Index has given us a clear view of life at sea. What it also shows is that many of those pressures originate ashore. ShoreHI is the next step — connecting both sides of the sector so we can move from anecdote to evidence, and target the changes that will have the greatest impact on wellbeing across the maritime workforce.”
The survey will be conducted anonymously and built on the existing Seafarers Happiness Index infrastructure, keeping additional resource requirements to a minimum. Over time, ShoreHI results will be aggregated alongside seafarer findings to build the most complete picture yet of how work and organisational culture interact across global maritime operations.
The announcement comes at a time when Nigeria’s maritime workforce is under considerable strain. Port congestion, policy uncertainty, low welfare standards for terminal workers, and the mental health burden on shipping professionals have all been subjects of growing concern — issues that Waterways News has reported on extensively.
The SHI, which is now in its 10th year, is run quarterly by the Mission to Seafarers in collaboration with Idwal and NorthStandard, and supported by Inmarsat. Its most recent edition recorded a modest rise in seafarer happiness to 6.98 out of 10, up from 6.91 in Q4 2024 — though concerns remain around aging vessels, maintenance pressures, and shore leave restrictions.
With the ShoreHI now joining the suite, maritime professionals on both sides of the gangway — including those working across Nigeria’s major ports and waterways — will for the first time have a formal channel through which their wellbeing can be tracked, compared, and acted upon.
NIGERIA WATCH
How this story connects to Nigeria’s maritime sector
The launch of the Shorebased Happiness Index arrives at a defining moment for Nigeria’s maritime industry — one in which the human cost of keeping Africa’s busiest port economy running is rarely counted, let alone measured.
Nigeria’s shore-based maritime workforce is vast and varied. It spans the dock workers and terminal operators at the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)-administered facilities in Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt; the freight forwarders and clearing agents regulated by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS); the seafarer certification and vessel inspection teams at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); the waterway transport operators and inland port personnel under the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA); and thousands more employed across crewing agencies, maritime law firms, logistics companies, and ship chandlers spread across the Niger Delta and Lagos corridor.
Despite the scale and strategic importance of this workforce — one that underpins Nigeria’s import-export lifeline and a significant share of its non-oil foreign exchange earnings — there is currently no formal, structured mechanism for tracking the welfare and job satisfaction of these professionals. Their grievances, burnout levels, workplace pressures, and morale are largely invisible to policymakers.
This is where the ShoreHI could change the conversation. Should Nigerian shore-based maritime workers participate in the index in meaningful numbers, the resulting data could provide the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy — led by Minister Adegboyega Oyetola — with an independent, evidence-based picture of workforce wellbeing across the sector. It would complement the Ministry’s ongoing reform agenda and give added weight to calls for improved welfare conditions, better pay structures, and more humane working environments at Nigeria’s ports.
For NIMASA, whose mandate includes the welfare and certification of Nigerian seafarers and maritime labour compliance, the ShoreHI represents an opportunity to benchmark Nigeria’s shore-based workforce against global standards — and to identify systemic gaps that internal reporting alone may not capture. The agency has in recent years expanded its focus on seafarer welfare, but the wellbeing of the shore-based professionals who support seafarers has remained a blind spot.
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), which advocates for the interests of cargo owners and monitors port service quality, would also find value in ShoreHI data. A demotivated or poorly supported port workforce — from berth allocation officers to terminal gate staff — directly affects cargo dwell time, port efficiency, and ultimately the cost of doing business at Nigerian ports.
For organised maritime labour, including the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and the National Union of Seafarers of Nigeria (NUSN), the ShoreHI offers a rare external validation tool — one that could strengthen their advocacy with port employers and government regulators by replacing anecdote with hard data.
Nigeria’s participation in the ShoreHI is not automatic. It requires deliberate engagement — from NIMASA and the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy encouraging participation, to industry associations like the Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA), the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), and the Shipping Companies of Nigeria (SHIPPERS-COMP) circulating the survey among their members. The more Nigerian voices that feed into the index, the more relevant and actionable its findings will be for our sector.
At a time when Nigeria is positioning itself as the maritime hub of West and Central Africa, understanding whether the people who run that hub are fulfilled, supported, and fairly treated is not a soft question. It is a strategic one.
Waterways News will continue to monitor Nigeria’s engagement with the Shorebased Happiness Index and report on any findings with implications for domestic maritime policy and workforce welfare.
Two More Tankers Struck in Strait of Hormuz as Attack Count Hits Five in a Week
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Two more tankers have been hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving two seafarers with minor injuries and pushing the number of reported attacks or security incidents against commercial vessels in the waterway to at least five since 16 September.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said an inbound tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile on Monday. Two crew members sustained minor injuries, but the vessel stayed under its own power and continued to its next port, with no environmental impact reported.
Hours later, UKMTO issued a second alert after an outbound LPG tanker reported being struck by debris from unknown projectiles. All crew were reported safe and the vessel also continued its voyage. Authorities are investigating both incidents, and UKMTO has not attributed either attack to a specific actor.
The two strikes build on a Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) advisory covering three earlier attacks between 16 and 18 September, one of which saw a tanker’s hull breached by a projectile, sparking a fire. JMIC continues to rate the threat level in the strait as “severe,” citing a high likelihood of deliberate hostile action and pointing to a pattern of harassment by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — drone overflights, surveillance of merchant vessels and VHF hailing, alongside the direct attacks.
Traffic through the chokepoint remains sharply depressed. Only 17 commodity vessels were visibly transiting over the weekend, down from 37 the week before and against a pre-war daily average of roughly 125. That figure excludes vessels sailing with their AIS transponders switched off, and JMIC notes a persistent gap between visible and actual traffic.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders, the Hormuz crisis is no longer a distant Gulf story. It is a cost line. Every fresh escalation feeds directly into the war-risk insurance premiums and freight rates that Nigerian importers, refiners and shipping agents ultimately absorb, since global tanker and container capacity pulled off the Hormuz route tightens supply elsewhere and pushes rates up across long-haul trades, including those serving West African ports.
The renewed attacks also sharpen the stakes around Nigeria’s push for a stronger voice at the IMO Council table and its broader blue-economy diplomacy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. A sustained Gulf disruption is exactly the kind of systemic shock that tests whether Nigeria’s seat translates into influence over how global shipping risk, insurance and rerouting decisions are made, rather than Nigeria simply absorbing the downstream cost.
Locally, the episode is a reminder of the layered nature of “maritime security” as a policy word: the Deep Blue Project and Gulf of Guinea security architecture address piracy and armed robbery close to home, but Nigeria’s ports and shippers remain exposed to security failures thousands of kilometres away in the Gulf.
Waterways News will continue tracking how the Hormuz situation feeds into freight cost pressure at Nigerian ports and NIMASA’s public messaging on the issue.
Blue Economy
Oyetola Confirms 7,059 Nigerian Seafarers Placed Onboard Vessels, Orders NIMASA to Fast-Track CVFF Disbursement
Oyetola Confirms 7,059 Nigerian Seafarers Placed Onboard Vessels, Orders NIMASA to Fast-Track CVFF Disbursement
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, says 7,059 Nigerian seafarers have so far been placed onboard vessels to acquire seatime experience, part of what he described as the Federal Government’s broader push to build a competitive indigenous maritime workforce.
The Minister, in a statement issued through his Special Adviser, Dr Bolaji Akinola, at the weekend, also directed the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to work more closely with the 12 approved Primary Lending Institutions (PLIs) to accelerate disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) to qualified Nigerian shipowners.
According to the statement, NIMASA has so far received 92 applications under the CVFF framework, of which 20 have been forwarded to the PLIs and one has been reviewed and cleared for approval. Oyetola said the ship acquisition initiative could generate more than 30,000 direct and indirect jobs across shipyards, marine engineering firms and maritime logistics companies, while deepening Nigeria’s domestic ship-owning and shipbuilding base.
The Minister linked the disbursement push to President Bola Tinubu’s authorisation to unlock financing long owed to domestic maritime operators, framing it as central to realising the economic potential of Nigeria’s blue economy.
On manpower development, Oyetola disclosed that 222 seafarers had been trained free of charge in basic and advanced professional courses, while 333 cadets completed academic training and were awarded degrees. Under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP), 135 cadets have completed the programme and obtained their Certificates of Competency (CoC).
He said the interventions reflect government’s commitment to strengthening indigenous maritime capacity so that Nigerians can benefit directly from opportunities created by the blue economy.
Nigeria Watch
The seafarer numbers are worth celebrating, but the more consequential line in Oyetola’s statement is the one about CVFF: 92 applications received, 20 forwarded to PLIs, and just one, only one is reviewed and cleared for approval. That ratio is the real story.
Waterways News has tracked the CVFF disbursement saga for years, and the pattern here is familiar: an announcement of “significant progress” that, on closer reading, describes a process still largely stuck at the application stage. Nigerian shipowners have waited over two decades for meaningful access to this fund, first established in 2003. A single approved application, even framed as forward momentum, does not yet amount to disbursement, and it is disbursement, not directives to NIMASA and the PLIs, that shipowners can take to the bank.
The seafarer placement and training figures are a genuine bright spot and speak to real capacity-building through NIMASA’s cadetship and NSDP schemes. But they sit somewhat apart from the CVFF question.
Training seafarers builds the workforce; it does not put Nigerian-owned vessels on the water for that workforce to crew. Until the CVFF pipeline moves from “20 applications forwarded” to actual funds reaching qualified shipowners, Nigeria’s ambition to grow an indigenous shipowning fleet — the same ambition the Minister invoked in citing 30,000 potential jobs — remains aspirational.
Waterways News will continue to press for concrete disbursement timelines and named beneficiaries under the CVFF, rather than accept process updates as a substitute for delivery.
Blue Economy
Navy, Fisheries Department Arrest 34 Suspects, Seize Three Vessels in Renewed War on Illegal Fishing
Navy, Fisheries Department Arrest 34 Suspects, Seize Three Vessels in Renewed War on Illegal Fishing
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
The Federal Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Nigerian Navy have struck a fresh blow against illegal fishing in Nigerian waters, seizing three vessels and arresting 34 suspects in a coordinated three-day sweep.
The operation, codenamed Operation Abo Eja 2026, was designed to tighten surveillance and enforcement against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, one of the most persistent threats to Nigeria’s marine resources and the livelihoods that depend on them.
Among those arrested were 24 Nigerians, three Ghanaians and three Chinese nationals, underlining the increasingly foreign and cross-border character of the illegal trawling networks operating off the country’s coast.
The Western Naval Command led the offshore muscle of the operation, deploying a naval ship, a helicopter and Special Boat Service personnel, while the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture supplied technical and regulatory backing to ensure the arrests translate into prosecutable enforcement action.
Deputy Director at the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Adeleke Adegoke, said the operation underscored the need for sharper intelligence gathering and better information sharing between agencies to make future raids more targeted and effective.
Flag Officer Commanding the Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Abdullahi Mustapha, described the exercise as proof of effective inter-agency coordination, adding that it would strengthen ongoing efforts to safeguard Nigeria’s marine resources.
Nigeria Watch
Operation Abo Eja 2026 lands squarely inside a theme this desk has tracked for months: the steady erosion of Nigerian control over its own coastal waters. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is not a fringe nuisance — it is a direct assault on artisanal fishing communities and the small-scale operators who make up the bulk of Nigeria’s blue economy workforce, even as foreign trawlers, often flagged or crewed out of Asia, continue to test the limits of enforcement.
The presence of Chinese nationals among those arrested will not surprise close observers of Nigeria’s fisheries sector, where foreign-linked trawling operations have long been accused of over-exploiting stocks with little regard for licensing or seasonal restrictions. It also reinforces a broader pattern this publication has flagged repeatedly: foreign dominance of Nigerian coastal waters remains an unresolved policy failure, one that recurs regardless of which agency is nominally in charge.
The joint Navy-fisheries model deployed here — naval assets providing muscle, the fisheries department providing regulatory teeth — is also the same architecture underpinning the Deep Blue Project and broader Gulf of Guinea security efforts championed by the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. Deputy Director Adegoke’s call for better intelligence sharing is a familiar refrain in Nigerian maritime enforcement: the hardware and manpower for these operations increasingly exist, but the surveillance and prosecutorial follow-through that would deter repeat offenders has historically lagged.
For the informal and small-scale operators this desk covers closely, the real test will not be the headline arrest numbers but what happens next — whether the 34 suspects face meaningful prosecution, whether the three seized vessels are forfeited rather than quietly released, and whether Operation Abo Eja 2026 becomes a sustained enforcement posture rather than another one-off show of force.
Oil and Gas7 months agoTantita’s Pipeline Deal: $144m Contract, Rising Output, and the Questions that Deserve Answers
- MARITIME TRADE & SHIPPING7 months ago
World’s Largest Container Ship Sets New Maritime Record with 22,233 TEUs on Single Voyage
- Blue Economy7 months ago
Nigeria’s Coast Guard Bill: A Solution in Search of a Problem?
