1. Every State shall fix the conditions for the grant of its nationality to ships, for the registration of ships in its territory, and for the right to fly its flag. Ships have the nationality of the State whose flag they are entitled to fly. There must exist a genuine link between the State and the ship.
2. Every State shall issue to ships to which it has granted the right to fly its flag documents to that effect”.
The registration of vessels under the Nigerian flag is governed by the Merchant Shipping Act 2007. The Act is supplemented by regulations dealing with such matters as crew competency, safety rules, load line rules, collision etc. The MSA 2007 is modelled after the English Merchant Shipping Act of 1894.
c. Such other persons as the Minister of Transport may by regulations prescribe.
Applications for the Registration of Nigerian Ships are made to the Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency. It is pertinent to state that Nigeria does not operate an open registry and therefore a Nigerian Consul is not permitted to accept registration documents and cannot issue certificates.
capital should not be less than N25,000,000 (Twenty Five Million Naira Naira Only).
Pursuant to Section 22 of MSA 2007, the ship-owner is expected to concurrently submit an application for survey and issuance of certificate of tonnage measurement to facilitate the flag survey of the vessel.
• Deletion certificate (if vessel is flagging in from a foreign flag, this is to avoid dual registration in line with Article 93(2) of UNCLOS 1982).
• Full names, addresses and occupations of the purchaser of the ship.
• Evidence of ability or experience of the purchasers to operate and maintain ship.
In accordance with Section 30 of the MSA 2007, the Registrar shall upon completion of the registration of a ship, issue a Certificate of Registration in such form as may be approved by the Agency.
This Article was produced by ‘Damilola Osinuga. LL.B, LL.M, ACIArb. A Legal Practitioner and expert in the areas of Maritime, Insurance, International Trade and Ship Brokerage.
Editor's note: This article was originally posted by the author on www.linkedin.com on 21st March, 2016.