Nigerian Navy installs surveillance towers to repel sea pirates

Nigeria has installed eight automated, camera-equipped surveillance towers in its waters to tackle a surge in pirate attacks.

Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Dele Ezeoba told journalists that the equipment, most of it from Japan's Furuno and costing roughly $12m in total, had high-frequency radio and long-range cameras able to spot ships up to 30 miles away.

The data the towers collect is beamed to a central naval intelligence room and then checked against ships' registration, flag and other information, Ezeoba said in Yenagoa, a part of the Niger Delta plagued by criminal gangs.

"From the domain awareness centre we can see ships from anywhere in the world coming or leaving our maritime space," he said. "It also gives you ability to ... ascertain the actual threat the vessel poses."

Four of the towers are in Lagos, one each at the Bonny and Brass crude export terminals, one in Yenagoa and one in Ibaka, in eastern Akwa Ibom state, but Ezeoba added that Nigeria still needed to work on its capacity to pursue pirates and other criminal gangs.

Nigeria's navy has had two successes against pirates this year – it captured four off the coast of the main commercial hub of Lagos in mid-August and said it killed 12 pirates in a shootout a week earlier.