Venerable Mike Adeniyi Gbadebo; the Chaplain of the ‘Mission To Seafarers’ in Lagos spoke about the challenges seafarers encounter, the level of assistance the church has been able to render to seafarers and other sundry issues in the maritime industry. Roland Ekama met last week with the Chaplain who spends his time looking for the comfort of foreign and Nigerian seafarers.
Can you tell us more about the mission to seafarers and the seafarers’ center?
Venerable Mike Adeniyi Gbadebo; the Chaplain of the ‘Mission To Seafarers’ in Lagos spoke about the challenges seafarers encounter, the level of assistance the church has been able to render to seafarers and other sundry issues in the maritime industry. Roland Ekama met last week with the Chaplain who spends his time looking for the comfort of foreign and Nigerian seafarers.
Can you tell us more about the mission to seafarers and the seafarers’ center?
The Mission To Seafarers, formerly known as Mission To Seamen is a Christian organisation which was established in 1856 to care for the physical and spiritual welfare of the seafarers of all nationalities and faith. Our main goal is to help and support those who are in need, night or day and most especially ocean-going seafarers, but it does not also exempt the local seafarers because as we speak, we have over 100 people who are seafarers, they come here to meet and of course the centre also takes good care of them and also gives guidance and counseling as well, that is talking about those who are yet to go onboard by way of looking for jobs. Through the grace of God, we have been able to help some of them to secure job either directly or indirectly, because our focus is to care for these seafarers while onboard ship even when they are outside, we try to make them feel at home even though they are far away from home, we try to encourage them to link up with their family either through telephone facility or other means of communication. We do go to the ports to bring them out in order to make them feel our historical site which is more like an excursion. Recently a Pakistani got stranded and we were able to help him out of his misery, so these are things we have being trying to do for seafarers all over. As the chaplain of the mission to seafarers, my work generally is to care for them irrespective of creed, race, nationality or background. It is also our work to do what is called social justice for them whenever such need arises. It is also a missionary arm of Anglican communion therefore our work is not just to minister to Christians alone, in fact the centre is open to everybody who is a seafarer and we have our facility there which include a snooker board ,swimming pool ,kitchen and others ,it really has nothing to do with religion because in the compound where you have the church, it is opened to them but it is not compulsory to attend, but I also thank God that in the month of October alone, we were able to baptize four seafarers from Nigeria.
But how do you get fund for the hospitality role you have been playing?
Even the office we have from our headquarters is based on donation that is , they are from those who appreciate all what we are doing for seafarers because we don’t charge them for using the place or the facility, but sometimes donations do come from those who have realized that we are doing a good job. Unfortunately in our own country, we have not been getting people to support our work and it has forced us to depend on our meager income that comes from the church. There is a particular Sunday the International Maritime Organization [IMO] declares as sea Sunday through the International Maritime Christian Association[IMCA] which happens to be the coordinating body for all Christians and NGO’S who are there to reach out to seafarers. But our own organization that is, ‘mission to seafarers’ happens to be the foundation member of [IMCA] and they felt that they must be a particular day for seafarers. IMCA is directly linked with IMO and it is a representative of IMO on the welfare of seafarers which also includes training .In a nutshell they declare every second Sunday of July of every year as sea Sunday and that sea Sunday we do send letters to our churches and even the arch-bishop use it to remind the churches to give special offering which at the end they send to our bank account. So it is not compulsory, in order words, Sea Sunday is a day you pray and give to the work of mission to seafarers, therefore it is the little money we have that we have been using to sustain the centre and the facilities involved. But right now we need people who really have the mind of giving to come to the aid of the seafarers here because we have a vehicle that was donated by International Transport Workers Federation [ITF] a very long time ago and that vehicle is now very old and to me I feel that if you want to go to the port with such vehicles, it does not actually give a good image to the country, because of the state of the vehicle. It is not a good image to carry sailors with the vehicle from the port to the centre, either for outing or for excursion. I do not go to the port anymore with that vehicle.
How far have your gone to solicit support from government agencies in the maritime sector?
The department for seafarer under the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency [NIMASA] was carved out from the defunct JOMALIC.I sold the idea of National Seafarers Board which was a wing of JOMALIC as at then and it was during the Olusegun Obasanjo era that they abolished JOMALIC and made it department for seafarers under NIMASA. Some people claim to care for seafarers but they do not care at all. I must say that Nigerian seafarers are suffering in silence, however I am not convinced with the welfare package by the maritime government agencies on seafarers, but I think there is a better way to approach such issues because so many things are done according to our lay down rules that we brought from Ghana. In Fact I am a missionary I cannot defend what they are doing toward helping the seafarers, I cannot say NIMASA has failed in the area of welfare of seafarers, but I am not convinced.
As the chaplain of seafarers center what has been your major challenge so far?
There has been lack of financial support from the government, but the church has tried a lot because the church is there to encourage seafarers through the work we are doing and to a larger extent, we are helping the government but they do not see it that way. Secondly, the issue of security, you find out that in the time past you find boys going after foreign seafarers trying to lure them and will eventually lead to fraud and all other illegalities that are associated, but then we normally counsel them to shy away from such people who normally deceive them that they want to take them to seamen centre; as it was fondly called in the past. Since the vehicle is rickety at the moment, we cannot drive such vehicle to the port to bring them over to the center for relaxation, so the issue of security is also a constraint. I must say that concessioning of the port has been able to keep security issue lighter for us to handle because the terminal operators will be able to know who comes and who goes out, but aside that we still need to improve on security issues at the ports. The third challenge happens to be an individual thing because they are people who ought to care for the seafarers but they are not doing it rather they care for their selfish interest, most of the highly placed people in the society who know much about the maritime industry and what seafarers tend to contribute to the nation’s economy ought to give back to seafarers in their own little way and It will interest you to know that many of the high- placed individual made it through the maritime and shipping sector in the past. Most individuals oversea who made fortunes from the shipping industry sometimes give out standing order in their will for things like this and I must say that government needs to do more because, in some countries government will allocate certain percentage of the fund obtained from shipping companies to assist welfare of their seafarers who are out of job.
How often do local and foreign seafarers come to the centre for relaxation?
When you talk of seafarers, I mean those that are coming to the centre, you cannot even predict the number because you can see a seafarer who has not been employed for a while at the center and from time to time the foreigners as well do come to the place. At the moment we have Filipinos, Russians, Ukrainians and Pakistanis; mostly when they are off and then the area I am coming to now is that the frequency of their coming has dropped because of the above mentioned security challenges and secondly lack of constant transportation means to bring them here. I do go to the ports whenever I find a vehicle that is presentable because what we normally do is that during the period, most of them will be off duty except for those who work in the night and ones they are able to see the vehicle they are always eager to go or even in the noon period we would negotiate whether or not they want to go to the centre, which at the end we take them back to the ship. But I must say that sometimes they escape from the centre due to the regiment we have on ground.
How are you able to control prostitution and drinking here, knowing that these are past times for seafarers?
As part of policy here, we don’t allow commercial sex workers to come near our premises, though they do come to the place, but we plead with them to go because we really need to be careful with such things. Whenever we go and bring the white seafarers from the port and we noticed that they have prostitute around them, we don’t allow such people to come to the place because the prostitutes will not be comfortable to come to place where we don’t allow immoralities to take place.
From your own assessment, how do the foreign seafarers get the commercial sex workers?
They way the pick the commercial sex workers is normally through the pubs and other public places outside the ports, but it is not like ours where you have only seafarers visiting the place. Even as we speak, many of the foreigners have encountered a lot of problems with the commercial sex workers one way or the other and that is the punishment for being disobedient to God, because they have been warned about the danger of such act, but let me say that I personally do go to the ports to preach to the seafarers and most of them who are exposed to the job we urged them to come to the place, but when it comes to the illegal side of it ,I mean those that are not really disposed we preach to them. In other words, they know how to get the rough girls around and like I said we need to be careful with things like this because sometimes the sailor will insist that the female friend should come in to relax at time we do not allow such things in this place. Though, I have several instances to preach to such girls at the gate which eventually they gave their lives to Christ by being born again. I also have instances of a particular girl who is in University of Benin, but who was once a prostitute. That is why I said initially that we counsel the sailors.
It appears that a group under the aegis of Nigeria Merchant Navy Regiment District is using the center to carry out some form illegalities, what is your response to that?
I must say that there is nothing like regiment and I must say that people will go out to blackmail one another. I have decided to help the young Nigeria Merchant Navy Officers who are jobless. They were of course using the place to meet, but I must say that majority of them are youths and I said if we allow the union to settle in this kind of environment, it will create problem for us, but for the youths I know I can handle it. Therefore this place is the centre where you come ,relax and if you like play the few games we have and go back to the port, but for those who have no place to go, we help. I remember in past, Captains do come to this place to look for seafarers for job placement and we will recommend for them, but it is not like that anymore because I know most of the boys that come to the place have certificate from Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron and School of Oceanography to mention a few, therefore they are not rogues to be blackmailed by people and it is just because there is no job for them. I told them to feel at home but not for me to make the place an office for them, but I advised them that as an organisation, there is the need for them to look for an office somewhere. From my own observation, I must say that an insider is behind that regiment alarm raised by the president of the association. However the Lagos state government has confirmed that the boys at the centre are experienced in the job they do which has made the government to pick some of them to assist jobs that involves boat mishaps and even flood, even though there is no remuneration yet.
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