₦airaland Forum

WARRI, Nigeria (Reuters) - After two days trapped in freezing cold water and breathing from an air bubble in an upturned tugboat under the ocean, Harrison Okene was sure he was going to die. Then a torch light pierced the darkness.

Ship's cook Okene, 29, was on board the Jascon-4 tugboat when it capsized on May 26 due to heavy Atlantic ocean swells around 30 km (20 miles) off the coast of Nigeria, while stabilizing an oil tanker filling up at a Chevron platform.

Of the 12 people on board, divers recovered 10 dead bodies while a remaining crew member has not been found.

Somehow Okene survived, breathing inside a four foot high bubble of air as it shrunk in the waters slowly rising from the ceiling of the tiny toilet and adjoining bedroom where he sought refuge, until two South African divers eventually rescued him.

"I was there in the water in total darkness just thinking it's the end. I kept thinking the water was going to fill up the room but it did not," Okene said, parts of his skin peeling away after days soaking in the salt water.

"I was so hungry but mostly so, so thirsty. The salt water took the skin off my tongue," he said. Seawater got into his mouth but he had nothing to eat or drink throughout his ordeal.

At 4:50 a.m. on May 26, Okene says he was in the toilet when he realized the tugboat was beginning to turn over. As water rushed in and the Jascon-4 flipped, he forced open the metal door.

"As I was coming out of the toilet it was pitch black so we were trying to link our way out to the water tidal (exit hatch)," Okene told Reuters in his home town of Warri, a city in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta.

"Three guys were in front of me and suddenly water rushed in full force. I saw the first one, the second one, the third one just washed away. I knew these guys were dead."

What he didn't know was that he would spend the next two and a half days trapped under the sea praying he would be found.

Turning away from his only exit, Okene was swept along a narrow passageway by surging water into another toilet, this time adjoining a ship's officers cabin, as the overturned boat crashed onto the ocean floor. To his amazement he was still breathing.

FISH FEASTED ON THE DEAD

Okene, wearing only his underpants, survived around a day in the four foot square toilet, holding onto the overturned washbasin to keep his head out of the water.

He built up the courage to open the door and swim into the officer's bedroom and began pulling off the wall paneling to use as a tiny raft to lift himself out of the freezing water.

He sensed he was not alone in the darkness.

"I was very, very cold and it was black. I couldn't see anything," says Okene, staring into the middle distance.

"But I could perceive the dead bodies of my crew were nearby. I could smell them. The fish came in and began eating the bodies. I could hear the sound. It was horror."

What Okene didn't know was a team of divers sent by Chevron and the ship's owners, West African Ventures, were searching for crew members, assumed by now to be dead.

Then in the afternoon of May 28, Okene heard them.

"I heard a sound of a hammer hitting the vessel. Boom, boom, boom. I swam down and found a water dispenser. I pulled the water filter and I hammered the side of the vessel hoping someone would hear me. Then the diver must have heard a sound."

Divers broke into the ship and Okene saw light from a head torch of someone swimming along the passageway past the room.

"I went into the water and tapped him. I was waving my hands and he was shocked," Okene said, his relief still visible.

He thought he was at the bottom of the sea, although the company says it was 30 meters below.

The diving team fitted Okene with an oxygen mask, diver's suit and helmet and he reached the surface at 19:32, more than 60 hours after the ship sank, he says.

Okene says he spent another 60 hours in a decompression chamber where his body pressure was returned to normal. Had he just been exposed immediately to the outside air he would have died.

The cook describes his extraordinary survival story as a "miracle" but the memories of his time in the watery darkness still haunt him and he is not sure he will return to the sea.

"When I am at home sometimes it feels like the bed I am sleeping in is sinking. I think I'm still in the sea again. I jump up and I scream," Okene said, shaking his head.

"I don't know what stopped the water from filling that room. I was calling on God. He did it. It was a miracle."

(Editing by Tim Cocks and Giles Elgood)


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The Lagos Safe City Project initiated by the Lagos State Government which involves the installation of solar-powered closed circuit cameras in strategic locations around the city may have been delayed by the directive of the Federal Government.

Reports say the FG directed the state government to discontinue the project explaining that it has a similar project in the offing expected to take off in the major cities of the country with Lagos being one of them.

See the Punch Newspapers reports below:

This emerged against the backdrop of the increasing cases of kidnapping in Lagos, a menace that has defied efforts by the police and other in the state.

While making enquiries about police effort in tracking kidnappers through the security cameras in the state, a police source at the State Criminal Investigation Department told our correspondent that security cameras had never been used in their investigations.

“The only time we make use of CCTV cameras is when our investigation takes us to a hotel or mall with security cameras. But if it is a crime committed on a Lagos road, forget it,” the source said.

Governor Babatunde Fashola had stated in January 2009 that the 10,000 cameras the state planned to install were to help to reduce crime in the state.

At a demonstration event, Fashola said the number of policemen in the state was inadequate considering the number of people in the state.

He said at the time, “Eighteen million people cannot be protected and policed by 33,000 people. This is impossible. No matter how much we try to increase the number of policemen, we cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.

“In an information technology-driven world, we have to be counted as one of those states and communities which will adopt best practices. Cameras, sensors, tracking devices are the nerve centre of these facilities that would assist men and officers of the police force, fire service among others to do their duty much more effectively.”

The project was to be funded by the Lagos Security Trust Fund while the cameras were supposed to be managed remotely through a central security command unit. Four years after this announcement was made, the state has not had a taste of those promises.

While speaking to newsmen, the state Commissioner for Information, Lateef Ibirogba explain the reason for the delay saying the issue is out of the control of the state government.

He said, “The problem with the issue of security cameras has nothing to do with the state government.

“When we were about to embark on their installation, the Federal Government contacted us and said we needed to stop. The reason we were given was that the FG had a scheme in the pipeline, which involved the installation of security cameras all over major cities in the country.

“According to the Federal Government, Lagos was going to be in the first phase of the project. That was why we stopped our own project.

“But we have since written a letter to the Federal Government, asking it to tell us those locations where the cameras will be installed so that when we begin to install ours, we would not duplicate locations. That is where we currently stand.”

The reports continues thus:

A state government official, who is also familiar with the issue, said the Federal Government’s negative attitude to it might be political.

“We all know the security cameras issue may remain buried as far as the Federal Government is concerned. If you think the Federal Government is overly concerned about Lagos, a state that is not controlled by the Peoples Democratic Party, then you are naïve,” the government source said.

Efforts to get the Presidency’s reaction did not yield positive result on Thursday as the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, could not be reached on his not pick the calls made to his telephone line.

http://www.ynaija.com/why-fg-blocked-installation-of-security-cameras-in-lagos/

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday.

In a national broadcast, Maduro said Chavez died Tuesday at 4:25 p.m.

Maduro teared up as he announced the news.


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PDP governors may pull out of NGF

Indications have emerged that the newly formed Governors’ Forum, under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, otherwise known as PDPGF may consider a pull out from the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF. DailyPost had gathered that the new forum is considering the decision to pull out, possibly in their next meeting which has been scheduled to hold next week.

In the event of this, the PDP governors will make halt contributions to the NGF, and transfer such to the funding of the PDPGF.

Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio earlier in the week emerged as Chairman of the new body.

Sources say the idea of the new forum was initiated by the presidency, citing hostility of the NGF Chairman and Rivers State Governor, Chibuke Rotimi Amaechi, whose tenure ends in May.

Already, the party’s leadership has chosen Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Shehu Shema, as the next chairman. It is yet known, if the incumbent will re-contest.

Dailypost investigation revealed that the decision to appoint Akpabio as chairman of the PDPGF was to prevent Amaechi from seeking re-election. Both governors are from the South South.

The presidency had concluded plans to make Shema the chairman of the PDPGF after the attempt to remove Amaechi failed last week.

It later made a u-turn when it was discovered that the position of the chairman of NGF was restricted to the southern part of the country. A ground that would make it easy for Amaechi to return as governor in the opposition parties, were already willing to support him for another term.



An insider with a deep knowledge of the the party activities said that the NGF has become more of an opposition than the supporting role it’s supposed to play on behalf of the presidency.

“We are all guilty of the long silence within our fold. Initially, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum was a peer review point for all of us but at some points, some of us observed that it was becoming highly vulnerable to personal interests and the manipulation of the opposition parties in recent times.

“As colleagues, we have had to talk to ourselves but when things continued the way they were going, we had no choice than to take a decisive step to set up our own body which is the PDP Governors’ Forum.

“In truth, we are interested in splitting the NGF as being insinuated in some quarters, but the truth is always the truth. For instance, it is not possible for us to have a South South man as chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and allow another from the same region to head the NGF.

“But we are oblivious of what is going on in certain quarters. If by May, we, I mean the NGF, go ahead to concede the two positions to the South South by the support of the opposition parties, we will have no option than to opt out of the parent group and concentrate on how to make the PDP Governors Forum more effective and productive devoid of personal interests and ambitions,” he said.


http://dailypost.com.ng/2013/03/02/pdp-governors-may-pull-out-of-ngf/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pdp-governors-may-pull-out-of-ngf&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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The FCC is looking to sign more agreements with other countries, says FCC spokesman Neil Grace. Hopefully that will happen soon. It might be the only way to stop some guy on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, from listening to your playlists, checking out your vacation pictures, or worse–stealing your identity.....now dis statement just goes a long way to show the booming market for used phones in nigeria aka computer village. At tha same time it sounds corny.....and racist. Why specifically refer to Lagos,Nigeria? Is there any relevant data showing how many used phones from the US and Europe get to Nigeria and Africa?

Why not have your own "Home theatre"? Gud morn folks