TITLE:
Methodological Responses to Contemporary Maritime Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea
AUTHORS:
Nana Raymond Lawrence Ofosu-Boateng
KEYWORDS:
Bayesian Network, Gulf of Guinea, Maritime Piracy, Ordinal Logistic Regression, Series Hazard Modeling
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.5 No.4,
April
30,
2017
ABSTRACT: The number of piracy
attacks on the Gulf of Guinea is increasing even though armed robbery and
piracy at the Gulf of Aden is on a gradual decline. The International Maritime
Bureau (IMB) specified in (2015) that the Piracy Reporting Centre updated their
records to 58 attacks by pirates, comprising of ten hijackings. With 11 attacks
reported for the first quarter of 2013, and 27 attacks in 2012 (almost three
times more than in 2011) along the territorial waters of Nigeria thus making
her the most affected country. However, it is believed that other coastline
countries and areas most affected apart from Nigeria on the Gulf of Guinea
comprise Ghana, Togo, Benin and Bakassi. This is evident as pirates have
increased their operations mainly petro piracy on the Ghanaian waters, which
negatively affects marine transportation and maritime security. The scenario has aggravated with the
discovery of oil along
these coastlines. This paper gives methodological responses to maritime piracy
by way of three models namely, the Ordinal Logistic Regression, Series Hazard
Modelling for Maritime Transport Analysis and the Bayesain Networks. The
uniqueness of these models in relation to their ability to address some of the
pertinent issues associated with modern day piracy is looked at. The study was
conducted as a panel analysis based on a longitudinal quasi-experimental research
design with focus on piracy attacks that occurred between 2006 and 2015
culminating finally in the various forecasts based on each of the different
models.