The National Seafarers Welfare Board has called on the Nigerian Navy to investigate and arrest owners and charterers of vessels arrested during alleged illegal activities on Nigerian waters, rather than just arresting the seafarers alone.
Chairman of the board, Otunba Kunle Folarin made the call last week while delivering a paper at a seminar organised by the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in Apapa, Lagos.
Folarin argued that the seafarer is an employee of the shipowner, hence cannot be held accountable for any infringement or infraction by the owner of the ship or the charterer.
According to him, the National Seafarers Welfare Board is working with other international organisations using diplomatic ways; it also recently secured release of five seafarers who have been flown back to their countries.
Apart from these, he said 20 seafarers are still in Ikoyi prison and possibly other prisons across the country, even as he narrated that the seafarers are languishing in prison because the ship they were working on was arrested by the Nigerian Navy for carrying illegal crude oil.
He said: "The shipowners are not known in most cases because most of the vessels were chattered for a single voyage, and the sailors don't know where they are going, even when they know, they don't know how legal what they are going to do is"
"The first person to hold accountable is the charterer or the owner of the ship, in most cases when it comes to intercepting the vessel, the charterer becomes a ghost, up till now, I don't think they have found any owner of these ships that have been arrested. The issue is clearly criminalisation of seafarers, arresting the workers as an accomplice"
"Until the government agency, which is the Navy is able to police and create a good surveillance of internal and external territorial waters of Nigeria to ensure that there is a deterrent to people coming to carry crude oil"
"The embassies are aware of this, they have made efforts to engage the government in discussion to ensure their release. Most of the victims are from developing countries"
Folarin confirmed that the Nigerian Seafarers Welfare Board has been supplying items to the seafarers in prison, while others are receiving assistance from their various embassies.
The board chairman also informed that the issue of criminalisation and incarceration of seafarers in Nigeria has received the attention of international organisations, including the International Transport Federation (ITF), among others.
"When I was in Copenhagen last year, this issue was on the forefront. I tried to play down the issue because I don't want to embarrass my country outside, it has however been constant with other issues of piracy, armed robbery at sea, stealing of crude oil, issue of non-compliance with maritime regulations. The nationality of those arrested goes across diverse climes of the world; Philippines, Indians, Ghanaians and many Nigerians".
"The shipping agents in most cases also disappear, three weeks ago we assisted in the repatriation of some seafarers who have been abandoned by their owners, they were not imprisoned but they were abandoned at the hotel", he said.
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