Naijaonpoint
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) recorded a staggering ₦879.1 million across six vaguely described expenditure, turning routine publicity, office supplies and management meetings into a bill large enough to provoke national outrage. This is according to its financial review by SecretsReporters
The year’s expenses show ₦300,000,000 for TV and radio programmes, ₦106,600,000 for advert placement, ₦300,000,000 for annual replenishment of store items, ₦50,000,000 for the preparation and implementation of an MSSP document and BI-Senior Management Strategy Session, ₦40,000,000 for MTSP entrepreneurial schemes and research, and ₦82,500,000 for ILO mandatory meetings and conferences.
These are not salaries, ships, rescue assets or marine-pollution equipment. They are overheads without a corresponding account of the airtime purchased, adverts placed, goods supplied, people trained, research delivered or meetings attended.
₦300 Million for television and radio could buy a relentless nationwide campaign
The most startling media line is the ₦300 million recorded for TV and radio programmes. A survey of publicly advertised Nigerian rates shows how enormous that amount is. Premium 30-second television spots are offered around ₦150,000 to ₦300,000 on major pay-TV entertainment channels. At the upper ₦300,000 rate, NIMASA’s allocation equals 1,000 prime-time spots. At ₦150,000, it equals 2,000 spots.
The comparison becomes even more dramatic against national television programme rates. A publicly advertised NTA rate places three hours of live coverage at about ₦12 million. On that benchmark, ₦300 million could pay for 25 separate three-hour live broadcasts — 75 hours of national television coverage. Another published NTA listing places a 30-second documentary slot around ₦3.5 million, meaning the same sum could fund about 85 of those premium placements.
Radio is cheaper still. A Nigerian institutional radio rate card lists a 30-second jingle at roughly ₦2,956 including tax and a 30-minute live sponsored programme at about ₦10,213. At those rates, ₦300 million is equivalent to more than 101,000 radio jingles or almost 29,400 half-hour live programmes.
NIMASA has not identified a television series, radio campaign, episode count, station schedule or public-safety result matching anything close to that scale. A media budget capable of buying a year-long wall of airtime under NIMASA disappeared behind the three words “TV/Radio Programmes.”
Another ₦106.6 Million for adverts deepened the unexplained media bill
After the ₦300 million for television and radio programmes, NIMASA recorded a separate ₦106.6 million for advert placement. The two lines pushed the agency’s media and advertising spend to ₦406.6 million in one year.
Using the published premium benchmark of ₦300,000 for a 30-second television spot, ₦106.6 million could buy about 355 prime placements. At the ₦150,000 off-peak benchmark, it could purchase more than 710 placements. If the money went to print or digital advertising instead, the expected volume would be wider still.
Yet the expenses incurred by the DG does not say whether NIMASA bought television spots, newspaper pages, online banners, billboards, sponsored interviews or a combination of them. It does not state how many adverts ran or which public maritime message required more than ₦100 million after the agency had already recorded ₦300 million for television and radio.
₦300 Million vanished into the description store items
NIMASA also recorded ₦300 million for the annual replenishment of store items without naming a single item. The sum is identical to the entire TV and radio provision, yet there is no indication whether it purchased stationery, uniforms, safety equipment, office consumables, spare parts or something else entirely.
At an illustrative average of ₦100,000 per item, ₦300 million represents 3,000 items. At ₦50,000 per item, it represents 6,000. At ₦10,000 per item, it represents 30,000. Those simple comparisons show why a lump sum is meaningless without quantities and unit prices.
The agency recorded ₦50 million for the preparation and implementation of an MSSP document and a BI-Senior Management Strategy Session. The description points to a strategy document and a management session, but the bill is closer to the cost of a mass retreat.
A 2024 Nigerian professional retreat offered a full three-day package which is two nights of accommodation, feeding, return transport, local shuttles, a roundtable, visits and a closing event for ₦205,000 per person in single rooms or ₦175,000 per person in shared rooms. On those market benchmarks, ₦50 million could fund about 244 people on the single-room package or about 286 people on the shared-room package.
₦40 Million research bill names no research result, ₦82.5 Million for mandatory meetings
A further ₦40 million was recorded for MTSP entrepreneurial schemes and research. The line does not say what was studied, who conducted the research, how many entrepreneurs benefited or what measurable programme emerged from it.
Research spending is supposed to end in something the public can identify; a report, dataset, pilot scheme, beneficiary programme or policy decision.
The last of the six lines is ₦82.5 million for ILO mandatory meetings and conferences across the agency. NIMASA did not state the number of meetings, destinations, delegates or days covered by the sum.
Mr Dayo Mobereola became Director-General in March 2024 and controlled the agency since then.
Source: …Secretsreporters