What EVERY Nigerian Should Know About Their Country's Sovereignty

Almost every Nigerian, including your kids/ nieces and nephews in school know fully well that the capital of their country is Abuja, We are located in West Africa and there are three major languages spoken. Going deeper, its common knowledge that Nigeria is a vary large country and geographically takes up to 923, 768 square kilometers worth of Land Mass. However, that's not all that there is as regards our rights to geographical territory.

Nigeria, like every other coastal State is entitled to its territorial sea which has an existence in its own right. The "territorial sea" / "maritime belt" / or "marginal sea" was first regulated by conventional law  through the territorial sea convention which consists of 32 articles and is the forerunner of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) UNCLOS. The UNCLOS has strictly adhered to the provisions of the Territorial sea Convention which in turn kept to International Customary law.

On the other hand, after gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria on its own enacted a territorial sea legislation in 1967 which was amended twice in 1971 and 1998 respectively. However, Nigeria became a party to the 1982 UNCLOS on the 14th of August, 1986 thereby making its legislative mark concerning the territorial waters both at the indigenous level and internationally.

ORIGIN AND HISTORY
The notion of a territorial sea has its origin in the need to protect a coastal State from attacks and to provide a coastal buffet zone. Article 2, paragraph 1 of the UNCLOS states that "the sovereignty of a coastal state extends beyond its land territory and internal waters and, in the case of an archipelagic State, its archipelagic waters, to an adjacent belt of sea, described as the territorial sea".
Paragraph 2 goes further to state that "this sovereignty extends to the air space over the territorial sea as well as its bed and subsoil". All coastal States exercise sovereignty over their territorial sea, the sea bed beneath their territorial sea, and the airspace above the territorial sea. The use of the term "sovereignty" connotes the bestowal of plenary powers upon the coastal State to regulate whatever happens in its territorial sea. in other words, no other State can exercise a concurrent sovereignty over its territorial sea unless and until the UNCLOS or other rules of international law so prescribe. The coastal State therefore has the right to exercise THE SAME powers in its territorial sea as it has over its land territory. Every Coastal State is entitled to 12 nautical miles worth of territorial sea which is equal to 22 kilometers; 14 miles.

RIGHTS OVER THE TERRITORIAL SEA
The rights of the coastal State over the Territorial Sea have been summed up as follows:

1. The exclusive rights over fisheries and the exploitation of the living and non living resources of the seabed and subsoil.
2. The right to exclude foreign vessels from trading along its coast (CABOTAGE: shall be discussed in further write ups)
3. The right to impose regulations concerning navigation, customs, fiscal, sanitary health and immigration.
4. The exclusive enjoyment of the airspace above the territorial sea
5. The duty of belligerents in time of war to respect the neutral States' territorial sea and refrain from belligerent activities therein
6. The certain powers of arrest over merchant ships exercising a right of innocent passage, and over persons onboard such ships.

Note however that Article 2 paragraph 3 of UNCLOS allows restriction upon a State's sovereignty when it provides that "The sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised SUBJECT TO THIS CONVENTION and to other rules of international law".

Having said all this, the questions posed are:

1. How well have we exercised our rights over our territorial sea? Because if we have gone as far as making sure that our land environments are cleaned and sanitized once a month for example, how much have we extended those responsibilities over our territorial sea?
2. We have the military and police check points every where on the roads but to what extent have the territorial waters been properly protected and secured? Its not news today that organized crime have found routes of transport right under our noses and through the water ways.
3. How equipped and well informed are the Nigerian Navy as regards the security, protection and the regulation of the activities within our territorial sea?

No wonder we can't keep up with cabotage  (the transport of goods or passengers between two places in the same country by a transport operator from another country or an indigenous transport operator); because if we haven't even realized that the waters are our jurisdiction well enough to secure and regulate that environment for people to operate properly, there will be little to no hope on developing our waters. In this particular situation, creating awareness is KEY; this is first of all what I think every Nigerian should know. So in every Social Studies curriculum, in every school, in every geography class, inform every Nigerian that the waters are their home and their responsibility. When we say, "you must sweep your room every morning", lets follow it up and say "remember not to throw dirt into the water".

Load as many check points around our coasts are there are on our roads, create water disposing services and yes, there should be sanitation of our marine environments too every month. But the question again is, are there laws that make room for these actions to take place? Where is the body that should be enacting these laws? do they know their responsibilities?

Knowledge is Power...