Maritime Archives Administration in Nigeria: A Blueprint

Abstract

Maritime archives are warehouses of past water based activities which have been recorded in various forms and are considered to be valuable for both present and future references. They are storage of valuable marine related records and documents that speaks about the hardware and software of water transportation of a country from the earliest date to the last date of all the records kept. Maritime archives therefore reveals about the historical endowment of a country’s water transport from crude to sophisticated infrastructure, boat, yacht and ship building and repair evolution and developmental stages, education and training, shipping trade and policies, people, etc.

This Paper proposes principles or blueprint for maritime archives administration in Nigeria that will guide decision making process regarding the establishment, structure, staffing and functions as well as funding of maritime archives in the country by using deductive reasoning out of general archives literature and personal interviews with maritime administrators on their perception about maritime archival services and their expectations on what should be collected and kept in ideal maritime archives.

The Paper observes that maritime archives materials can be collected from the national archives, States history and culture bureaus, archives of the old regional formations, research centres of tertiary institutions, palaces of Emirs, Obas, Obis and other traditional chiefs as well as museums and libraries overseas. 

The paper therefore recommends that maritime archivists must have industry knowledge and cognate work experience while funding can be done through cost sharing between major institutional stakeholders.

The paper concludes that sustainability of maritime archives lies in a comprehensive document policy for electronic data that stipulates the retention policy as it affects back-up by all maritime organisations in the country and duration or age within which to transfer documents to central collation domain at the maritime archives.

The views expressed in this Paper are entirely those of the Author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.