Anger rises over Diri’s failure to invite Maritime Journalists for the unveiling of Aquaculture Village in Bayelsa

By Monday Peters, Abuja

Anger rises as the Nigeria’s League of over 250 Maritime Journalists were conspicuously absent as Governor Douye Diri made history on Tuesday November 4, 2026, at the unveiling of an Aquaculture village in Yenegwe, near Yenagoa which also coincided with a large scale harvest of the state owned fish farm.

The stakeholders in the Marine section had also accused the governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri for appointing a Pharmacists, one Faith Zibs Godwin to supervise the Bayelsa Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy in the previous event.

However, there is growing concern amongst maritime stakeholders that the huge investments and interventions in the sector, especially the Agge Deep Seaport project, by Gov Diri are grossly under reported. Said an aide to Douye Diri who spoke to Shipping World on condition of anonymity.

“This is what you get when you appoint a non professional to head such a critical ministry. What business has a pharmacist got to do with a Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy? He continued,

“Can you imagine the implications of denying sports journalists an opportunity to cover such an event if it was a sports facility…that is why it is important to place square pegs in square holes”, the official concluded.

On the contrary, Shipping World investigations revealed that all activities of the Marine and Blue Economy Minister, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, are fully covered by maritime journalists either by their physical presence or press statements issued by the Minister’s media aide, Dr Akinola Akinola, unlike the media teams at the Nigeria Content Monitoring and Monitoring Board and Tantita Security Services ,for instance, which enjoys considerable media support from maritime journalists, there is no verifiable evidence that Dr Faith Zib Godwin reckons with the corps of maritime journalists, Shipping World investigations further revealed”, said a maritime journalist in Lagos yesterday.

“We only see her postings on facebook when she is part of the entourage of Gov Douye Diri on a foreign trip, we have never seen a press release from her, in fact we don’t even know her media aide by name”, he concluded