Mr. Ubong Essien, founder of The Blue Economy Academy has said the newly launched institution was founded to educate people about the value and significance of the wealth embedded in Nigerian waters.
During a media partnership launchoen organised by the Academy in Lagos, on 15th February, 2025, Essien told journalists that the Academy is aimed at eliminating sea blindness, elevating awareness and engagement with ocean-centric opportunities.
He informed that there is room for advocacy and getting policy makers and industry leaders to drive supportive policies during the course of running programs in the Academy.
He emphasised that if people know more about the sea, their minds expand and they begin to interpret their skill . According to him, the Academy will run its program through ten buckets of prosperity which includes Blue commerce, bounty, cities, capital, governance and justice, nexus, climate, talent , ventures and power.
Mr. Essien announced that there are programs that will be done which will require visiting one or two states which will require a field tour adding that there are programs that will last for a month. He said at the end of the one month, a capstone project will be done.
Mr. Essien’s recent experience as Special Adviser on Strategy and Communications to the Director General of NIMASA highlighted the immense potential of Nigeria’s maritime domain and the critical need for skilled professionals to drive its sustainable development. It is with this understanding that the Blue Economy Academy was established.He is also the Dean of the School of Eloquence which has birthed sound public speakers for about twenty years.
“In Nigeria, we are largely sea blind.The level of awareness as to appreciate the value in our waters is so tragically insignificant. Most people don’t even understand the dimensions of what we have.
“In our vision, we say we envision a Nigeria that prospers with water, and in terms of how we want to go about it, we want to eliminate sea blindness.
“Most of the education, with the exception of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) programs and most of the education in the U.S. are what is called function-specific. Like what we’ve done here at the School of Eloquence, most of the education is function-specific. And if learning under this is going to be function-specific, the best persons to lead would have to be industry experts, giving them the opportunity to share their knowledge and create enough cross-fertilization for ideas to be brought to the fore, that could then filter into the policy channel for policy makers to find this permission.
“Nigerians need to know that as a coastal nation, the waters affect them economically and across the world.That is what we mean by nationwide impact.
“We created this technology, because in the course of my research, I took some time to develop what would be the framework for how we empower people to do economic knowledge. That’s why we created these 10 buckets and we’ll fetch from 10 buckets.
“We already have the facility in place. And we’re already building the faculty. It is going to be a faculty of what we call industry fellows.”, Ubong Essien said.
