Experts from Cameroon, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon who are members of the technical committee on maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea started a meeting in Yaounde, the Cameroonian capital on Monday, December 21.
The four countries share the Gulf of Guinea which informs their concerns over maritime security in the area that has become a playground for pirates.
According to official sources at the meeting, “The objective of the meeting is to reflect on the techniques that could break the neck of these transnational criminal acts for the good of the people living in this area, the reinforcement of sub regional cooperation as well as the maintenance of peace”.
The meeting is chaired by the Secretary General in the Cameroon Ministry of Defence, Said Kamsouloum.
The experts, chiefs of diplomatic missions and general officers of the four countries have been instructed to put in place concrete measures and evaluation mechanisms that would permit the reinforcement of operational dispositions.
“All these participants have been reflecting on the possibilities of arriving at a protocol accord of cooperation in the domains of security and maritime security,” the official revealed.
The Defense Ministry chief scribe revealed that the said protocol accord “…could be signed within the shortest possible time once the normal diplomatic channels have been followed”.
Government officials in Yaounde are said putting in place of the measures that would be an outcome of the synergy of actions which contribute to the fight against terrorism and other criminal acts in the Gulf of Guinea, fall within the logic of the summit of heads of state held in Yaounde in June 2013.
“The heads of state had expressed their common wish for an efficient maritime governance in the Gulf of Guinea from Angola in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) to Senegal in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),” one of the officials said.
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