A day after his wedding, he set sail. Had no time for family. Sadly, he was hacked to death by pirates
By Kelechi Mgboji
Saturday, April 12, 2008

• late Omotayo Sile-Ola Nana Photo: THE SUN PUBLISHING

Living index

What lengths could a man go to make money to sustain a family, to the extent of sacrificing time for a relationship with the family? That is a question the tale of a seaman’s life evokes.

And the experience of Captain Omotayo Sile-Ola Nana, (41) who was murdered by sea pirates in the last week of January brings a recall of how miserable a man’s life would be in the quest for making economic means bearable.

But while Nana lost his life, there are still other colleagues of his still at the seas. One of them revealed that in the 14 years of his seaman career, he has spent a total of 18 days outside the seas. You will be terribly disappointed to think they get fat pay for the enormous time they put in the job.

A father afar
Captain Nana had been on the seas for more than twenty years of his life and had been planning to retire after the trip but he did not survive. Death came calling and he left the family he laboured to provide for, albeit detached, and the son laments that: Although he lived and died working for the future of his family, regrettably we did not quite enjoy his paternal affection and closeness. The first son, Adetola Muyiwa Nana further said “we don’t really know him. Each time he returned home, he would want to spend some time with us but there was no time.

“We understood because he was trying to prepare a future for everybody. He wanted everybody to go to school and be a university graduate. He wanted everybody to be okay. He wanted the best for us, so we understood from that point. But as in the love and closeness between father and child, it wasn’t there”, Adetola regretted.

Mr. Ola Olubowape, his family member also lamented that: “If Captain were opportune to say a last word he would have told us he was going home to rest having spent his lifetime on precarious waters struggling to bequeath a modest future to his children. He would have loved to spend some time with his family because for the past five years or more there was no time he stayed with them for up to three days.”

For Nana’s widow, Olatito Olasunkunmi, words are not enough to tell how much she missed him and will forever miss him. But the sea man’s unavoidable absence in the house notwithstanding, he was more loving and caring than any other father could be. No wonder his half brother, Omoba Tai Nana said the vacuum he left is too wide to fill.

Weds today, hits the sea morrow
He wedded on May 26, and sailed on 27th; no honey moon. On the 28th, the wife was shattered. She wept uncontrollably before the guests who were still much around to rejoice with them. The call of duty had compelled the trawler man to bid good-bye to his newly-wedded darling. No time to ravish her. With just a kiss, off he went.

Captain Ilemobayo Upenko’s is an illustrative instance of the unenviable life of sea men in Nigeria. Recent attacks and killing of trawler men by sea pirates have thrown him up for a peep into the precarious life they are almost compelled to live. Perhaps, more than some workers in sectors of the economy other than fishery, sea men are quite dedicated as they contribute immensely to the economy but nobody talks about their welfare. Unfortunately, they are not united under any pressure group, unlike their employers who have organized themselves under one umbrella body called Nigerian Trawler Owners Association (NITOA).

Ask any sea man, be he a captain, engineer, boss man or deck officer, he would quickly tell you that though the job is quite interesting, yet he cannot recommend it to anybody, not even an enemy. Even as they trawl on the seas day and night for about 60 days, they earn so little. It was gathered that the highest paid among them, the captain, earns about N50,000 for a voyage while deck officers receive about N5,000 for the same period.

As captain of one of the 24 vessels of Banarly Nigeria Limited, greater part of Bayo’s life like every other sea man’s, is spent on the sea. In the 365 days of the year, only a miserable 18 days was spent on shore in the past 14 years. Scarcely does he spend a whole day with his family of three. Like his late friend and colleague, Capt. Nana, time for family and friends is luxury.

Dream unfulfilled
Adetola who is studying computer science disclosed that his late father had made up his mind to quit the job if he had safely returned from that ill-fated voyage. Adetola said “three days preceding his brutal killing-Thursday, Friday, Saturday - we talked for long hours on phone. He told me ‘if I safely make it back to shore, I would quit the job. Sea Pirates have made it increasingly unsafe to trawl on the waters these days’. He expressed his desire to see me at home if he eventually returned”.
This much was the wish of the captain, who made a clean sail for over two decades until Sunday, January 27, on the Debunja Point - a few nautical miles away from Cameroon,
Pirates numbering over 15 besieged their vessel with guns, cutlasses and clubs, dealt fatal blows on him and put an end to a career he had enjoyed throughout his lifetime.
Eventually, Adetola returned alright. But he returned only to bury his father.

Death on the waters
Capt Nana, until his death, was a staff of Banarly Group Ltd. Apapa Lagos. According to the company’s General Manager (Operations) Mr. Thomas Joseph, the trawler man was cruelly murdered by a gang of pirates who left about ten others injured on that night alone. From the report of the second engineer on board who narrowly escaped death, Thomas painted a picture of the gory incident.
On January 27, our vessel called Olokun 4 was operating at Dubunja Point when at about 11:30pm sea pirates besieged the men on board. They were about 15 people.

The chief engineer was off-duty and had handed over to the assistant engineer. As soon as they entered, they started beating and shouting “where is the money?” They were going up and down asking for the captain. Finally, they got the engineer and the rest of them, and started beating them mercilessly with guns, machetes and sticks. They continued beating for about one hour and later put them on their boat to take them away. But one of the pirates later ordered for their release and they complied and released them.

Then they had a feeling that captain might have jumped into the sea. So they waited for long time, hoping that he could resurface but to no avail. At this point the engineer wanted to communicate to other vessels, it was then he realized that the communication system had been vandalized and some taken away. So they could not communicate too. Then, they moved to check everywhere in the vessel. Finally, they found him inside the materials store.

When they noticed that saliva was gushing out of his mouth, and there was no sign of breathing, they started steaming towards some other vessels to help them communicate to the base for some medical help. Later, they contacted me through Kunlag 7 and Olokun 5. Immediately, I tried to organize for some medications with my contacts. I tried to reach for some medical doctors in Calabar. They reached Calabar the following day at about 10:30am. Then the doctor examined captain’s body and said he could not do anything because, he already died some hours ago.

Mass pirate assault
On the day Nana was murdered, several vessels were attacked by pirates who usually meet no form of resistance. They took time to comb the seas, hijacking and attacking every vessel and crew they caught.
It was gathered that earlier on January 11, the marauding sea robbers had attacked several vessels trawling between the Escravos and Focados. On that day, Vessels belonging to Tarabaroz Fisheries Limited were attacked. According to the Chief Engineer on board, Mr. Nicholas Senya, the criminals shot sporadically for about 30 minutes before they gained entrance into their vessel and started beating every unlucky crew they could find.

The Ghanaian who is still receiving treatment for multiple gunshot wounds at Apapa, disclosed that the pirates operate with sophisticated fire arms and ammunition that could shatter through piles of steel barriers and hit a target. Other crew members, Lambert Uyewaji and Joseph Oguntimehin had their bodies shattered by multiple bullets. Before the January 12 attack, Tarabaroz had lost a Chief Engineer in a fatal pirates’ attack that left many battered.

On October 29, 2007, about 12 vessels belonging to different fishery companies were also attacked. On that night alone, four vessels belonging to Banarly operating in Cameroon waters were attacked. According to an insider, the pirates had hijacked one vessel belonging to ORC Fisheries and commanded the captain at gun point to take them to Malabo. They were said to have operated for two days and after they were done, they asked the captain to take them to shore range where they disembarked, comfortably.