Fourteen days across the Atlantic, perched on a ship’s rudder
Four Nigerian stowaways set out for Europe on the rudder of a tanker. They had no idea they were bound for Brazil, and a two-week ocean voyage that would nearly kill them.
A little after midnight on 27 June, Roman Ebimene Friday gathered up the food he had been collecting for a few months and set out in the dark for the large commercial port in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. Earlier that day, Friday had spotted a 620-foot (190m) tanker docked at the port and decided that it would be the ship to deliver him to Europe.
Friday was aiming for the tanker's rudder - the only accessible point on its massive hull for a person who isn't supposed to be aboard. There was no way to bridge the gap from the dock to the rudder, other than convince a fisherman to ferry him across. "He was a holy man, that fisherman," Friday recalled. "He did not ask for money. He could see that I wanted to leave."
The fisherman sidled up to the rudder and Friday, 35, pulled himself up, hauling his food bag behind him on a rope. As he steadied himself he saw, to his surprise, three faces in the dark. He was the last of four men with the same idea. "I was scared, at first," Friday said. "But they were black Africans, my brothers."
Fearful of being caught, the four men perched silently on the rudder for the next 15 hours. At 5pm, they felt the ship's giant engines shudder to life. Over the din, they shouted a few words. They were all aiming for Europe. They expected to be shipmates for as long as a week.
The tanker, called the Ken Wave, pushed out from the port and headed to sea - the beginning of a perilous two-week ocean voyage that would bring the stowaways close to death.
Day one
As Lagos receded behind them, the men tried and failed to find comfortable positions on the rudder, which moved constantly as it steered the ship. There was precious little space to stand, and the only place to lie was in one of two small nets strung precariously over the water, by previous stowaways, Friday assumed.
It can be hard to understand, from the outside, what drives a person to risk their life on a rudder or a rickety boat across the Mediterranean. But the decision comes easy when you have already lost hope, Friday said.
"In Nigeria there are no jobs, no money and no way for me to feed my younger brothers and my mother," he said. "I am the first born son and my father died 20 years ago, so I should take care of my family, but I cannot."
Instead he had spent three years living on and off the street in Lagos, trying to find work. Each day in Nigeria was a gauntlet of "crime and sin," he said. "People fighting, killing each other, terrorists attacking, kidnappers. I want a brighter future than that."
Perched next to Friday on the rudder of the tanker was Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, a Pentecostal minister, businessman and father of two whose peanut and palm oil farm had washed away in the devastating floods that hit Nigeria last year. There had been no fallback or insurance to cover the loss.
"My business was destroyed and my family became homeless. And that was the genesis of my decision to leave," he said.
Yeye's decision became final after the recent presidential election, which was marred by anomalies and allegations of vote rigging. "The election had been our hope," he said. "But we know Nigeria well, we know the system is corrupt." So, without telling his family, he left his sister's home at night and set out for the port, where he knew the Ken Wave was waiting to depart.
Nigeria has seen an exodus of people like Yeye and Friday in recent years, via regular and irregular routes, driven by recessions and record unemployment levels. Many travel across the Sahara and the Mediterranean, where at least 1,200 Nigerians have died already this year, according to the UN.
Full article -
Fourteen days across the Atlantic, perched on a ship’s rudder
absolutely no goading in my response. You asked someone to answer a question that contained a false premise, and my post was to point out the futility of that.
