Two survivors of the boat mishap off the coast of Calabar, Cross River State yesterday relived their moments of horror.
Kive Sani, 27, from Togo and Hafsat Zakari, 13, from Benin were rescued by Addax workers on Sunday afternoon. They were brought in to Calabar aboard a drilling vessel operated by Addax Petroleum on Tuesday.
They were passengers aboard a wooden boat, which departed Oron in Akwa Ibom State for Gabon last Friday.
It was gathered that the boat had on board 128 passengers and five crew members. The passengers were mostly foreigners from Niger, Togo, Republic of Benin and Ghana. They were not Igbo traders as was believed at first. However, the five crew members were Nigerians.
David Akate, who is involved in the rescue efforts, said the boat had still not been found; so its true capacity is not yet known.
Sani said he was heading to Gabon because he was promised a good job by a man he kept referring to as his master. He said he arrived in Oron a month ago from Togo by bus before embarking on the unfortunate journey.
Sani, who spoke in pidgin English and French at the Bakor Clinic at the Murtala Mohammed Highway where he was admitted, said the incident was caused by stalled engines.
According to him, when the engines stalled, water started entering the boat.
He said they were in the water from 9pm on Friday night when the incident happened till Sunday at about 3pm when he was rescued.
Sani said when the engines stopped working, the captain asked them to start praying. “The Muslim prayed first, then the Christians and he told us our life is at the end. Some were shouting Allah; others were shouting Jesus. Ten minutes later, water was still entering the boat and people started to jump into the water,” he said.
He said there were 128 passengers and five members of the crew. He said he knew this because he had become friendly with the crew, having arrived there a month earlier. He said he was their interpreter for those who understood only French.
Sani said after jumping into the water, he saw an oil installation equipment and held it, with his master and two other women. He said his master, however, could not hold on again and fell into the water. Later , the second woman lost grip, and he told the remaining woman to hold on and pray.
He described the boat as being “fabricated with planks.” He said they boarded the boat in the “middle of water, surrounded by bushes.”
Sani gave the names of the crew members, all Nigerians, as Theo, Kpakpa, Ibrahim, Daniel and Francis.
“Most of the people were from Ghana, Togo, Niger, Benin. Not many Nigerians,” he said.
Hafsat Zakari, who spoke only Yoruba, said she did not remember much, but that the engine stopped working close to an oil field.
She remembered that they were asked to start praying when the accident happened.
Unlike Sani, who paid to be part of the trip, Zakari did not have to pay, as she was supposed to be handed over to a patron in Gabon, who would make her work and pay later.
The Nation learnt that because the voyage was illegal, the boat was only sailing at night to avoid being arrested for human trafficking.
The coordinator of the Eastern Zone of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr Olayemi Abas, told reporters yesterday that on Sunday, he got a message from Kaztec Engineering Limited, the operators for Addax Petroleum, that a vessel carrying passengers capsized around the oil field OML 123, which is 40 nautical miles off the Calabar coast.
He said: “In the ensuing search and rescue operation embarked on by Addax, nine bodies were recovered and two survivors.
“The NIMASA team from the local office in Calabar and the zonal office in Port Harcourt, which I head, immediately swung into action and we received the bodies on Monday at about 6.30 pm at the NPA terminal operated by Ecomarine Terminals. They were brought on board a vessel called Swal Link Six and the bodies were immediately taken to the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital for embalmment and safe keeping. The bodies were bloated and all nine bodies were women and, unfortunately, one of them was heavily pregnant at the time of death, which was unfortunate. They were brought in well-packaged in body bags, in a dignified manner. Also recovered were two bags containing clothing, shoes and other personal effects.
“Also, we recovered a vital clue a foreign SIM card belonging to one of the passengers and SIM card is operated by a company called Moove, apparently operating in Gabon. When we did an analysis of the SIM card, we were able to recover some of the numbers on it made contact with some of the people who claimed to know the owner of the telephone number and identified him as Joe Marine, who is still missing. He was identified to be a Nigerian living in Oron with his family? The two survivors were brought in on board a drilling vessel being operated by Addax on Tuesday. The drilling vessel is MV Baveni, very massive vessel.”
National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Yushau Shuaib yesterday confirmed that nine bodies had been found.
Shuaib said other survivors could have swum to the shore.
Shuaib said it was also not clear what the boat’s origin and destination were, but that authorities expect to get further details from the two survivors.
A medical doctor, Emmanuel Obi Nwabueze, told The Nation that Sani and Saka were handed over to NIMASA yesterday.
He said: “I handed the two survivors over to NIMASA and NPA official at the Calabar port for further medical attention, though they are stable now. Diplomatic work on how to hand them over to their countries of origin will commence.”
