We were asked to pray when boat engines stopped – Survivors

Two survivors of the boat accident, which happened 40 nautical miles off the coast of Calabar, Kive Sani and Hasfat Zakari, have recounted how stalled engines caused the havoc that consumed many lives on March 15.

Sani, 27, from Togo and Hasfat Zakari, 13, from Benin Republic, who spoke to reporters in Calabar, Cross River State, on Wednesday, said Addax Petroleum workers rescued them on Sunday afternoon.

Sani, who spoke through a French interpreter and occasionally in Pidgin English at the Bakor Clinic at the Murtala Mohammed Highway, where he was on admission, said stalled engines caused the incident.

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 to Sunday at about 3pm when rescue operators saved him.

He said, “When the engines stopped working, the captain asked us to start praying. The Muslims prayed first, then the Christians. He told us our lives were at the end. While 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.”

Sani, who said the wooden boat had 128 passengers plus the five-man crew, added that what saved him initially was the oil facility equipment that he held onto.

According to him, his master and one other woman held onto the same facility but that they could not stay long as they fell into the water.

He gave the names of the crew members, as Theo, Kpakpa, Ibrahim, Daniel and Francis.

Sani added, “Many of the people were from Ghana, Togo, Niger, and Benin Republic.”

 Zakari, who spoke in Yoruba, said through an interpreter that she did not remember much, but that the engines stopped working close to an oil field.

“I can only remember that we were asked to pray when the boat developed a fault,” she stated.

Meanwhile, the coordinator of the Eastern Zone of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Mr. Olayemi Abas, said the agency received report of the incident on Sunday at 9.30pm, through Kaztec Engineering Limited, operators for Addax Petroleum.

  Abas said, “In the ensuing search and rescue operation embarked upon 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 18 at about 6.30pm 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, all nine bodies were women, and unfortunately, one of them was pregnant at the time of death. They were brought in well-packaged in body bags in a dignified manner.”

Meanwhile, our correspondent gathered on Wednesday that 27 more people had been rescued and taken to Oron.

Eight of them were said to be Nigerians, while the others were foreigners.

PUNCH