Asisat Oshoala has recovered from Covid-19. Barcelona Femeni posted a picture of the Nigerian striker training after recovering from the disease. She has also received her African Player of the Year trophy, more than a year after she won the award in January 2020.
Oshoala is a 4-time African footballer of the year, having won the award in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019.
In our series of letters from African writers, Nigerian journalist and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani considers Twitter's power and the Nigerian government's moves to curb it.
It has been two months since the Nigerian government banned Twitter after the tech giant deleted a post by President Muhammadu Buhari for violating its rules on abusive language.
Despite the global outrage that followed, including strong words of condemnation from top foreign diplomats in the country, the government remained adamant.
However, it announced on Wednesday that it was finalising an agreement with Twitter and the ban would be lifted in a few days or weeks.
Much of the comment that followed at the time focused on the ban's negative impact on freedom of speech and the economy.
Many Nigerians use the platform to amplify their grievances against the government and to reach more customers for their businesses.
But Twitter's decision to delete President Buhari's post - in which he threatened violence against a separatist movement - was ill-advised. This has also become a point of debate in other parts of the world, including India.
The US-owned, private firm appeared to be interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign African state without enough background knowledge to understand the consequences of its actions.
Neo-colonialism
At the time, Twitter said the post was in violation of its rules.
The company has the right to enforce its regulations, but Mr Buhari's post was an official communication from the Nigerian president to his people, tweeted from a government account.
The same message was also broadcast on other media platforms across the country.
Is it right that a private American firm has the power to edit, without permission, the official communication of a democratically elected president of an African country? It doesn't get any more neo-colonial than that.
Nigerians have the right to be aware of their leader's plans and strategies, irrespective of how reckless his choice of words might be. They have a right to know even if he is planning something as heartless as unleashing violence on them.
Similarly, Nigerians have the right to respond to him as part of the interaction between the government and its citizens.
Mr Buhari's tweet threatened violence against the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) movement, which is seeking a breakaway state in south-eastern Nigeria, home to the Igbo people.
Ipob was outlawed in 2017 - the group fought the ban in court and lost.
Amplifying divisions
While many Igbos believe they have been marginalised in many ways, such as being left out of key national leadership positions, the majority do not support Ipob's desire for secession.
Neither do they like its violent rhetoric against other ethnic groups - often referred to as wild animals by Ipob leader Nnamdi Kanu, who is facing treason charges.
In February, Facebook deactivated Mr Kanu's account for its hate speech, but he remained active on Twitter.
By deleting Mr Buhari's threats, Twitter was inadvertently taking sides with Ipob, and the group's supporters wasted no time in celebrating this assumed show of solidarity.
Following the backlash from the government in June, a few of the Ipob leader's tweets were removed by Twitter.
Similarly thoughtless involvement by Twitter amplified the divisions that derailed Nigeria's #EndSars movement that oversaw protests against police brutality in October 2020.
Different groups were involved in planning and fundraising for the protests that began online and poured into the streets of cities across Nigeria for about two weeks.
But when Twitter verified the account of one group and not of others, it led to bitter mudslinging and the withdrawal of some groups from the movement.
The tech giant trod where even seasoned foreign diplomats and global bodies fear to go.
Many well-meaning outsiders have learned never to be too quick to meddle in the affairs of African countries, like Nigeria, where issues are often more complicated than meets the eye. They are increasingly embracing the trend of deferring responsibility to local organisations that better understand local dynamics.
Twitter's decision to set up a West Africa headquarters in Ghana is a good step in developing cultural competence.
"If it was authoritarian to ban Twitter, it was even more problematic for an American in Silicon Valley to poke their finger in the affairs of a sovereign state" - Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Nigerian novelist
The Nigerian government's conditions for lifting the ban include that Twitter must register its business in Nigeria and have a staff presence in the country.
Mr Buhari's administration has shown little respect for the rule of law and freedom of speech, with a number of journalists and activists locked up simply for criticising the government.
Banning Twitter completely is a barely concealed attempt by the government to stifle voices of criticism, and Nigerians have good reason to be worried.
But the power of Big Tech to make arbitrary decisions about who gets to say what, when and how, is equally troubling.
It raises questions about policing speech and censoring unpopular voices, amid the need for open public debate in a free democratic society.
If it was authoritarian for the Nigerian government to ban the use of Twitter, it was even more problematic for an American swivelling in a chair in Silicon Valley to poke their finger into the internal affairs of a sovereign African state.
The future carrier that they mentioned here is HMS Queen Elizabeth, which was eventually commissioned in 2017.
HMS Ark Royal scrapped in Defence cuts
19 Oct 2010
The Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is to be scrapped along with its fleet of Harrier jets as the coalition prepares to announce cuts in the Strategic Defence and Security Review.
David Cameron will announce this afternoon the scrapping of the aircraft carrier “with immediate effect” and is also expected to confirm that the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent will be delayed.
Without HMS Ark Royal Britain will be without an aircraft carrier capable of flying jets for up to a decade while two new vessels costing £5.2bn are being built.
Spared the axe
That carrier project has been spared the axe because it would cost the taxpayer more to scrap it.
The first aircraft carrier is expected to come into service in 2016, but it will need to be converted to allow it to be used by jets from allied nations and that could take several years.
Neither of the new carriers will be used by British military jets until at least 2020 and one could be mothballed and possibly sold under future options.
“We will look at the modern threats that we face in a modern world and make sure our Armed Forces are fit to face them.” DAVID CAMERON
Defence Secretary Liam Fox insists the gap in Britain’s aircraft carrier capability will not affect its defence abilities. His reassurance comes despite warnings from Navy chiefs.
David Cameron reportedly told his Cabinet it was one of the hardest decisions he has made since becoming Prime Minister.
David Cameron addressed members of all three of the Armed Forces this morning.
He said: “We will make sure that Britain is well defended and we have a set of Armed Forces that actually are fit for the modern world. We will look at the real threats that we face today in our world, whether it’s from cyber terrorism, whether it is from international terrorism or terrorism that comes from dissident Republicans in Northern Ireland.
“We will look at the modern threats that we face in a modern world and make sure our Armed Forces are fit to face them.”
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “We’ve got a big announcement to make this afternoon about how we are going to equip our country for the future, to make sure people are safe and secure at a time when we face a whole range of new threats and where we’ve got a lot of big challenges, to make sure that people’s skills and livelyhoods here are protected where we can protect them, to make sure that we don’t spend money on things that we don’t need.”
HMS Ark Royal - the facts
• HMS Ark Royal celebrated 25 years in service earlier this year. • HMS Ark Royal was built at Swan Hunter's dockyard in Newcastle. • Construction on the hull began in 1978 and the ship was commissioned into service in 1985. • Ark Royal entered service on 1 July 1985 and was commissioned in the presence of the Queen Mother four months later. • The construction cost was £320m but the ship was delivered by Swan Hunter four-and-a-half-months ahead of schedule, with some mid-build alterations having been made due to lessons learned from the Falklands conflict. • Ark Royal - motto "Zeal Does Not Rest" - is the fifth ship to bear the name. • The first Ark Royal, originally built for Sir Walter Raleigh, became the flagship of the English fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. • The third Ark Royal took part in the sinking of the Bismarck. • Ark Royal IV was the subject of a well known documentary, "Sailor", in 1978. • The current Ark Royal helped bring peace to Bosnia in 1993/94 and, following an extensive refit and upgrade in the late 1990s, took part in the second Gulf War in 2003. • Ark Royal is one of the Royal Navy's two operational Invincible Class aircraft carriers. The ship can support up to 24 aircraft anywhere in the world and provides a mixture of war-fighting, peace support and disaster relief capabilities.
Armed Forces cuts
All three services of the Armed Forces are facing manpower cuts, with the Army expected to lose large numbers of tanks and RAF bases could be closed and fighter jets axed.
Yesterday Cameron signalled a shift in the UK’s security priorities with the threat of international terrorism and cyber attacks high on the agenda.
Publishing the National Security Strategy, Cameron said the current defence structure was “woefully unsuitable for the world we live in today”.
A large-scale conventional military attack was ranked only in the third tier of security threats to Britain. Labour claimed this was being used as “cover” for a “rushed” defence review.
The SDSR will underpin moves towards mobile military units, intelligence-gathering and Special Forces. This will move strategy away from tank brigades and jet fighters which dominated defence thinking during the Cold War.
PM intervened
An intervention by the Prime Minister kept defence cuts at the Ministry of Defence to around eight per cent rather than the 10 per cent wanted by the Treasury as part of deficit-reduction efforts. He was advised by military chiefs it could affect the Afghanistan war and Washington expressed fears too.
Cameron is expected to blame Labour’s £38bn overspend for the military having to find greater savings over the coming decade.
Dr Fox admitted personnel numbers would “inevitably… fall a bit” but he refused to discuss reports the forces could lose as many as 20,000 servicemen.
Some 7,000 Army troops have been reported, but it is predicted they will escape the most serious cuts at least while operations continue in Afghanistan.
The report continues after that, but I've posted the main bit. The rest is about cutting the number of battle tanks and Cameron's assurances to Obama that the UK would remain a first rate military power despite the cuts.
Threat analysis, need analysis, cost benefit analysis. People who engage in comic book fantasies do not do any of these. For them it's more about bragging. That's all. "The US has it, therefore, we should have it, whether we need it or not, whether we can afford it or not".
Aircraft carriers are used for force projection by countries that have overseas territories to defend or countries that have enemies that they have gone to war with. We have neither, yet some people want us to spend huge amounts of money on an aircraft carrier that we will not use, just to satisfy their egos.
We have actual threats. There's the threat of piracy, there's the problem of smuggling, there's the issue of maintaining peace in our neighbourhood via Ecomog. We have not finished with that, yet some people want us to divert money that we would have used to address these threats and also used for healthcare, education, etc. and instead use that money to fund an aircraft carrier.
When the UK instituted austerity measures in 2010, David Cameron's government scrapped its only aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, because it knew that the cost of running it would put a strain on their finances. This is the UK that is many times wealthier than Nigeria, has many overseas territories and has far greater threats than we do, yet some people want us to buy an aircraft carrier.
The question that people repeatedly asked Cameron back then was how the UK would defend the Falklands, because that's what aircraft carriers are used for, and he said that they would borrow from the French if necessary, yet Poloyanabo2 wants us to have an aircraft carrier.
South Africa, which is wealthier than Nigeria at the moment and has less citizens to take care of, does not have an aircraft carrier, yet Poloyanabo2 wants us to have an aircraft carrier.
The US has the most aircraft carriers in the world and it only has 11. The UK only has 2, yet they want us to have an aircraft carrier. Only 17 countries in the world have aircraft carriers, yet they want us to have an aircraft carrier.
The US has aircraft carriers because it has obligations to protect Japan, South Korea, etc and it has overseas territories like the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to protect, while countries like India have aircraft carriers because of the threat of China and Pakistan. . .what overseas territories does Nigeria have and what is that big threat that we are guarding against, yet Poloyanabo2 wants us to have an aircraft carrier.
You know, when I was a kid I often wondered why my driver was not overtaking every car on the road and driving at excess speed. Now I'm an adult and I don't drive the way that I wanted my driver to drive. People like Poloyanabo2 still have the mentality I had when I was a kid, so there's no need for me to continue to read his posts.
Poloyanabo2: So Russia, China and the USA that are acquiring military equipments are doing so to fulfil comic desires right?[/b]
This is precisely what I was referring to. WHAT ARE THE COUNTRIES THAT ARE TRYING TO INVADE NIGERIA AND WHAT ARE THE COUNTRIES THAT ARE TRYING TO INVADE THE US, CHINA AND RUSSIA?? ARE THEY THE SAME? It is comic book fantasy to say that we should get an aircraft carrier just because the US has one and not because we need one. WHAT ARE THE BUDGETS OF THE US, RUSSIA AND CHINA AND WHAT IS NIGERIA'S BUDGET? CAN YOU COMPARE THEM??
Do you know how much it costs to acquire and maintain those things? Do you know how much it cost us to acquire Sepecat Jaguars in the early 1980s? Di we ever use them? Wouldn't it have been better if that money went into education and healthcare??
Cos Nigerias challenges are obviously bigger than they've got,
And I'm talking state of the art warships and you're talking corvettes? Which modern navy still boasts about Corvettes? No destroyers and no warships of up to 100m in length and no battle cruisers and you're talking corvettes? Corvettes is a thing of pride to the supposedly giant of Africa? Egypt has Carriers Btw, And NNS Aradu is dead and on course to be decommissioned, I get am before no be property.
Countries don't just acquire weapons to battle challenges only, Countries also acquire weapons for power projection purposes too, Even Taiwanese, Singaporean Navies are more sophisticated than the Nigerian Navy and its saddening.
Why do we need to project power? Who are we projecting power too? We haven't yet funded electricity, education, healthcare, yet this one is talking about projecting power, to where and for what??
This is precisely the comicbook fantasy that I was referring to. Buying things that you don't need with money you don't have just because you have seen it in a Hollywood movie or a comicbook. IT IS MADNESS!!!
What Nigeria needs are vessels to protect shipping in its territorial waters (corvettes and frigates), vessels to support Ecomog operations (like the LTs), and vessels for emergency rescue operations. We haven't even finished with that, but this guy is talking about aircraft carriers. Do you know the number of people it takes to man an aircraft carrier and how much it costs to run it??
Which other navy in West and Central Africa is as large as the Nigerian Navy that would force us into a pointless and senseless and downright stupid arms race??
Even the United Kingdom, as rich and powerful as it is, gave up its aircraft carrier during the Cameron years because it could see the economic realities that it was facing, but this one wants Nigeria to buy an aircraft carrier, because it will be financed with comic money. It reminds me of the guy that said that we should drop a nuclear bomb on Boko Haram.
masterchi: NNS Thunder is not a frigate, it's a cutter. Cutters are different from frigates plus I never said Nigeria doesn't have ships, I said Nigerian Navy no too get good ship and they actually no too get good ship
Read here
Wrong. Warships are classified by countries and each country has its means of classifying warships (for example, NNS Aradu is the first ever MEKO 360 warship that was built. Nigeria classifies it as a frigate. Its identical siblings that were built for the Argentinian Navy were classified as destroyers by the Argentinian Navy. In Nigeria a frigate is a ship that is larger than a corvette, but smaller than a destroyer.
In fact, the definition of a frigate has changed over the centuries and various countries have various means of classifying frigates.
Even the term cutter varies. I've known what a cutter is since the 1980s. The cutters that were used by Stephen Decatur are different from the cutters you see today.
I already know that the US Coast Guard classified it as a cutter. I know that right from the day it was commissioned. I also know that the Nigerian Navy classifies it as a Frigate.
Now, here's what I want you to do. Instead of telling me that the US Coast Guard classifies it as a cutter, tell me what a frigate is and why NNS Thunder does not qualify to be classified as a frigate.
Poloyanabo2: Those are patrol boats right? But does Nigeria have any destroyer or state of the art Warships? Only patrol boats and a Non-functional frigate called NNS Aradu, Nigeria Navy has a long way to go to sufficiently qualify as a blue water Navy, For now they are a brown water Navy and power projection capability is lacking. Egyptian Navy has Submarines and Helicopter carriers, SA Navy has Submarines even as small as Equador, their Navy has a submarine. Nigeria's military as a whole needs to grow up, it needs overhauling.
1) Military equipment are acquired to meet challenges, not to fulfil comic book fantasies. The money that is used to acquire military equipment is also competing with money for healthcare, education, etc. Therefore, you buy what you need, not what fulfils your fantasy. That was the mistake we made in the late 1970s and early 1980s when we bought a lot of equipment that we never used.
2) Secondly, we do have sophisticated ships that perform the task that we require, eg. NNS Centenary, NNS Unity ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_056_corvette), the new LST that has just been built in the UAE, etc.
3) NNS Aradu was commissioned in 1982 and it suffered from neglect during the Abacha years due to sanctions on Nigeria. We are already ordering a new frigate to replace her (https://www.africanmilitaryblog.com/2021/04/nigerian-navy-explores-frigate-acquisition). The Aradu was a sophisticated and advance warship when we commissioned it. It was the first ever MEKO 360 warship
The reason that many countries are taking an interest in the Gulf of Guinea is because sea piracy threatens trade. North America, European and Asian countries make a lot of money from trading with West and Central African countries and that trade is threatened by the pirates. Ships from these countries are often hijacked and their nationals are often taken hostage by sea pirates in the Gulf of Guinea.
Around 10 or 15 years ago, the Gulf of Guinea overtook the Horn of Africa and became the most dangerous shipping area in the world because of sea pirates. France, Spain and other countries have warships patrolling international waters off the Gulf of Guinea because of this.
Nigeria has the largest navy in the region and that's why these countries are always working with the Nigerian Navy to fight piracy. Of course, as you can see from Boris Oyebanji's story, Nigerian ships also get hijacked and Nigerian nationals also get kidnapped. That's all this thread and this operation is about.
APGA had already created its campaign council way back in July.
ANAMBRA DECIDES: Obiano heads Soludo’s campaign council
July 19, 2021 By Chris Ochayi
Ahead of the November 6 governorship elections in Anambra State, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has constituted a National Campaign Council, NCC, for its governorship candidate Professor Chukwuma Soludo.
The campaign Council would be headed by the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano as Chairman, while the National Chairman of APGA, Dr. Victor Oye will serve as Deputy Chairman.
Other members include former National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, former Deputy Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Nkem Okeke, Dr. Chinedu Emeka, Mr. Emeka Sibeudu, APGA BoT members, Dr. Labaran Maku, APGA National Secretary, APGA current National Assembly members and Sir Norbert Obi.
Details of the campaign council released by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Barrister Tex Okechukwu, last night showed that the party also named Professor Chukwulobelu as the Director General, DG, of its State Campaign Council.
Other members of the 9-man APGA State Campaign Council include Hon. Primus Odili, Campaign Secretary, Finance and administration, and Hon. Chinedu Obidigwe, Deputy Director General in charge of Operations, Strategy and Security among others.
To ensure a comprehensive campaign at the grassroots ahead of the election, the party also announced the Constitution and names of Local Government Areas campaign Principal Officers.
Speaking earlier, the National Chairman of APGA, Dr. Victor Oye said the party was going ahead to organise robust campaign machinery to participate in the governorship poll.
He assured that party will emerge victorious notwithstanding the drama playing out at the INEC with the electoral umpire conspiring with impostors to cause confusion within the party.
Dr. Oye was optimistic that the party would get favourable judgment from the court of jurisdiction and that the party’ s governorship candidate, Professor Charles Soludo will win at the polls.
The INEC, on Friday published the list and personal particulars of candidates and their running mates for the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State.
INEC however dropped the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo, and that of APGA, Prof.Chukwuma Soludo.
The commission, instead, named Chukwuma Michael Umeoji as the substantive candidate of APGA.
masterchi: NNS Okpabana and NNS Thunder are not frigates. NNS Aradu is our only Frigate and it is not even in good shape. Nigérian Navy no too get good ships.
The Gulf of Guinea, off the West African coastline, is probably the world’s most dangerous sea route. No one knows this better than second officer Boris Oyebanji who, over the course of two weeks, was hijacked and kidnapped by pirates — and then accused of being a pirate himself. This is his story.
By TOMI OLADIPO November 8 2019
(see second picture at the end of this post) The Gulf of Guinea (Image via Google Maps)
MAY 4 2019
Gideon Osanebi, captain of the MV Charis, has been sailing the high seas for 32 years — longer than his second officer, Boris Oyebanji, has been alive. On this particular journey, 26-year-old Oyebanji was handling navigation as their tugboat sailed from Onne Port in southern Nigeria to the Port of Luba in Equatorial Guinea. Once there, the tugboat was supposed to escort an oil barge back to Nigeria.
The 10-person crew of the MV Charis was not expecting any trouble.
Although this route, cutting through the Gulf of Guinea, is regarded as the most dangerous in the world — in the first nine months of this year, the region accounts for 86% of the 49 crew taken hostage and 82% of the 70 crew kidnapped globally, according to the International Maritime Bureau — the 10-person crew was not expecting any trouble. Nonetheless, as has become standard practice, a naval escort vessel came with them all the way to the maritime boundary between Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. Once they crossed that border, they would be on their own.
MAY 5 2019: Part I
The Charis crossed into Equatorial Guinea’s territorial waters at about 1.30am. Oyebanji was asleep.
Two hours later, he was woken up by a man in his room who hit him with a gun and yelled in his face: “Where is the captain? Where is the safe? Where is the money?”
As Oyebanji’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see the man was wearing a mask and was dressed in black.
He ordered Oyebanji onto the bridge but there was no sign of the captain or the chief officer — or whoever was supposed to be on watch. Oyebanji assumed they had hidden in the toilet. There were other armed men on the bridge, also dressed in black. Pirates. They were looking for money.
Every vessel is required to be equipped with a global maritime distress and safety system, to be activated in emergency situations to call for help, but this was not an option for Oyebanji. “I was really scared,” he said. “I had read a lot about pirate attacks and how they hijack and kill people. So, for every order they gave, I had to comply to save my life. I didn’t consider making any distress call or activate any signal.”
(See third picture below for map)
The seas were rough and it was raining. The pirates ordered that the tugboat change course and head towards São Tomé and Príncipe. Then, giving up on their search for cash, they announced they would leave the way they had arrived — on their speedboat.
For Oyebanji, however, the ordeal was just beginning.
May 5 2019: Part II
The pirates had a second target in mind — the MV Blue Marlin, a Maltese-flagged heavy load carrier that was a little over three nautical miles away. There was one major flaw with this plan — none of them knew how to sail a ship of that size. So they told Oyebanji that he would be going with them. At gunpoint, one of the pirates said to him: “If you try anything stupid, I will kill you and throw your remains in the sea.”
Oyebanji resolved not to try anything stupid, but he did come up with a plan of his own. Just before getting on the speedboat, he begged to go back to the bridge and get a life jacket. His request was granted. He ran back to the bridge and while the pirates were preparing the speedboat for launch, he whispered to Osanebi what the pirates were planning. The captain and the crew had been discovered in the toilet. The captain promised to raise the alarm as soon as the pirates were gone.
Oyebanji boarded the speedboat, which set course for the Blue Marlin. Along the way, the pirates — he counted seven in total — performed rituals he had never seen before, and which appeared to exert an almost mystical effect over them.
“They started making incantations,” he recalled. “They were chanting in a language I didn’t understand. There was this idol, like a statue, on their boat and they poured drinks on it, still chanting.”
Nigerian security officials, who later picked up the pirates’ communication, identified the language as Ijaw, which is spoken in the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria. The pirates are suspected of being part of a piracy syndicate from that area.
When the speedboat reached the Blue Marlin, the pirates boarded it using a ladder they had brought with them. Once on board, they opened fire, but the ship’s 20-strong crew had already sought refuge in the ship’s citadel — a safe room. The pirates made a small hole in the citadel and fired through it, but no one was injured.
(see 4th picture below for picture of the ship) The MV Blue Marlin, registered in Malta, at sea in the Gulf of Guinea.
Frustrated, the pirates ordered Oyebanji to make an announcement on the ship’s public address system. With a shaky voice, he began: “Crew members, come out of your hiding place or you will be killed if you are found.”
The leader of the pirates pushed him aside and took over the loudspeaker. “Come out or we will kill you and we will burn down the ship and sink it,” he barked. There was no response. He repeated the command over and over, asking the crew to give up all the money and valuables they had. Still nothing.
Then he ordered Oyebanji to turn the ship around and sail for the port city of Calabar near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon. Oyebanji could not comply. The indiscriminate shooting had destroyed the navigation equipment, so it was impossible to tell where the Blue Marlin was or in which direction it was travelling.
The pirates decided to wait it out, hoping that time would force the crew out of the citadel.
Time was not on their side, however. Three hours later, they heard the unmistakable sound of approaching helicopters. The distress call from the Charis had alerted the navies of Equatorial Guinea and Spain. The latter were conducting surveillance and maritime security operations in the area as part of a Nato mission.
The pirates panicked. They fired at the helicopters and the helicopters fired back. (The choppers were unable to land and returned to base.) The pirates got into their speedboat and fled. Oyebanji did not go with them. During the shootout, he slipped away and hid in an electrical room at the bottom of a flight of stairs.
Later, he would learn about what the pirates did next. They returned to the Charis, because that was about as far as they could go. Their speedboat was riddled with bullets and was taking on water. They ordered Osanebi to set sail for Calabar and mended their speedboat. But they never made it to the Nigerian port city. After being intercepted by an Equatorial Guinean naval ship, the pirates boarded their speedboat, detached it from the Charis and fled.
MAY 6 2019
Back on the Blue Marlin, Oyebanji hid until morning. In the light, he spotted a communications system in the electrical room and tried to use it to communicate with other parts of the ship. The rest of the crew remained in hiding. As a statement from Spain’s ministry of defence later explained: “The crew never knew with certainty if the criminals had fled because they never left the safe compartment.”
(see 5th picture below) Spanish and Equatorial Guinean troops boarding the MV Blue Marlin (Photo: Estado Mayor de la Defensa)
Soon Oyebanji heard the sound of a helicopter approaching. Putting on an orange jumpsuit he had found lying around, he ran to the ship’s deck, jumping and waving so he could be seen.
“I believe they saw me, because the altitude of the helicopter wasn’t that high,” he says.
The helicopter circled the ship and then left. He returned to the bridge to look for any equipment that could determine the ship’s co-ordinates. Instead he found the radio. On Channel 16 VHF, the frequency used specifically for maritime distress calls, he broadcast: “All stations! All stations! All stations! This is Boris Oyebanji, second officer on board the MV Charis. I was abducted by sea pirates on my vessel yesterday and I was brought on the MV Blue Marlin.”
(see 6th picture below) The Serviola, a Spanish patrol boat, led the rescue effort. (Photo: Estado Mayor de la Defensa)
He gave the ship’s co-ordinates and requested urgent assistance. He repeated this call five times. A Spanish warship eventually responded. They asked how he got on the Blue Marlin, whether the pirates were still on board, and if he had seen any of the crew members. He answered, and the reply was for him to stand by.
Soon the rescue party arrived. The Spanish warship Serviola led the operation, which included forces from Equatorial Guinea’s navy. As Serviola approached, it fired three warning shots, but this time there was no resistance on board.
Troops from the Serviola then boarded the Blue Marlin. In April they had successfully freed a Nigerian-flagged vessel that was attacked by pirates in the same waters. This time they found no pirates and the crew came out of the citadel unharmed. The Spanish forces left that afternoon, while the five troops from Equatorial Guinea’s navy remained on board until the Blue Marlin could be towed safely to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, for repairs.
Oyebanji’s vessel came to pick him up. The rest of his crew thought he had been killed until they heard his distress call that morning.
He took off the orange suit and disembarked from the Blue Marlin.
The Charis sailed under escort to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea. They arrived at 2am. The naval commander ordered the ship to anchor away from the quayside and remain there until sunlight. Osanebi made a call to the owners of the Charis, C&I Leasing, to update them. Later that morning, he received an order from the navy commander to heave up the anchor, start the engine and proceed to the jetty.
There the crew found a large delegation that included government officials, security officers and the press. The navy officers summoned the two captains to explain what happened. Equatorial Guinea is a Spanish-speaking country — the only one in Africa — and this created a language barrier between the people on the ground and the Nigerian crew of the Charis, who spoke English. There was a series of questions, but the Nigerians were confused.
(see 7th picture below) The rescue team poses with the crew of the MV Blue Marlin (Photo: Estado Mayor de la Defensa)
Then a navy officer struck Oyebanji on the back of his head and ordered that the crew be arrested.
An air commander who had been on one of the helicopters approached the stunned Oyebanji and said he had seen him when he was waving from the deck of the Blue Marlin. “Where is the orange suit?” he demanded. Oyebanji told him he had left the jumpsuit on the ship when he was rescued and that he only put it on so that he could be seen. The answer was not enough and neither party appeared to properly understand what the other was saying.
Their names were recorded and they were paraded in front of the waiting media before they were led to a van. The crew of 10 were accused of attempting to hijack the Blue Marlin.
State radio broadcast a statement from Equatorial Guinea’s vice-president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, commending the work of his country’s armed forces in saving the crew and arresting the pirates. “Thanks to the rapid intervention of our armed forces, we were able to save the crew on board and arrest the 10 pirates, whose presumed nationality is Nigerian.”
The news spread in both the local media and outlets across Europe, because of the involvement of the Spanish Navy.
The reality of their situation hit home. Oyebanji had grown up wanting to be a soldier and then a pilot, until he made several visits to his uncle — a seafarer. He was now six years into his career at sea and at this point he was in an unimaginable situation.
“I was thinking, ‘Why would they want to lock us up for no reason? We were also victims here’.” His family also came to mind. “I was thinking about my parents especially. Being their only son, I cannot afford to die in prison or out at sea.”
The crew was locked up in one holding cell, apart from an engineer who was taken back to operate their tugboat. The crew, who were now prisoners, said they did not receive any food or water for four days.
Something was in their favour: one of the crew had a cell phone that had not been detected by the security forces. With this, the crew made calls home to let their loved ones know what had happened. This sparked a flurry of calls and tweets to foreign ministry officials and even comments on the Instagram account of Obiang, who had been posting photos of his safari in Zimbabwe.
But the timing was not quite right for a diplomatic intervention. The defence minister, Antonio Mba Nguema, who was also the president’s brother, had died in South Africa and was being mourned, disrupting government activity.
And so the days passed. Oyebanji spent his 27th birthday, May 18, in detention.
Progress, when it happened, was slow. Equatorial Guinea’s inspector general of police took over the investigation and questioned the men through an interpreter. A shipping agent, who was to liaise with the crew on their arrival in Malabo, provided the police with documents to prove that they were indeed sailors and not pirates. C&I Leasing also sent personnel, as did the Nigerian embassy.
MAY 21 2019
Eventually a government committee questioned Osanebi and Oyebanji about their ordeal.
The two men felt that the interpreter in this conversation mangled their words and was passing on the wrong message.This confusion led to a fresh interrogation by the minister for national defence, Nicolas Obama Nchama.
He sent the men back to their cell.
MAY 22 2019
The interrogation continued the next day. Osanebi and Oyebanji remember being in the minister’s office when he received a call — which they discovered was from the president — after which he ordered them to leave immediately.
“I won’t go that way again if there is no security. I won’t go!”
They were sent back to the cell where they were visited by the defence attache from the Nigerian embassy, who said they were free to go. Equatorial Guinea was finally convinced that they were not the pirates.
The defence attache promised they would receive security escorts all the way home. The crew decided against sailing that day because they did not have enough fuel or food. A Nigerian Navy warship, the NNS Burutu, was waiting for them at the boundary between the two countries’ territorial waters. When the crew did not turn up, it returned to Nigeria.
(see 8th picture below) The crew of the MV Charis with company representatives and a Nigerian consular official, shortly after their release from detention in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Boris Oyebanji is in the back row, on the far right. (Photo: Supplied)
MAY 24 2019
At 9am, the Charis set off for home, escorted by a warship from Equatorial Guinea. At the boundary they did not find the Burutu. The Charis’s radio frequency transmitted only 50 nautical miles.
They were once again alone, in the waters where they had been attacked by pirates. Rather than return to Malabo, Osanebi decided to risk the journey home without an escort, because they had had enough of the misery they had suffered in Equatorial Guinea.
Osanebi had been through rough seas before in his long career, but he had not experienced anything like this.
MAY 25 2019
The Charis arrived in its home port of Onne at 8.05pm.
The crew are grateful to be back home safe, but they are worried that the accusations of piracy will taint their prospects. “The news was all over Europe,” said Oyebanji, who worries about obtaining visas in the future. “If I want to travel, it will be a problem.”
He adds that more needs to be done to secure Nigeria’s waterways. “I won’t go that way again if there is no security. I won’t go.”
NazareneMonk: Pirates when dey use speed boat na him America want come fight? These guys only rub traders and maybe some unarmed vessels, that's if they are from Nigeria and I can't say for other Countries. Tackling issues like this will only take a couple of weeks and a maximum of 3months, unless our territorial Waters are not properly guarded.
1) The US came on a training mission to work with navies from the Gulf of Guinea to fight against piracy.
2) The US exports a lot of goods to West and Central African countries. This trade is threatened by sea pirates.
3) US companies also have oil assets in West and Central African countries and these are threatened by pirates.
4) Before you assume what the sea pirates do and what the US has been doing about it, maybe you should actually carry out some research.
5) Can you tell us why the US, Spain, Ghana and other countries are involved in this exercise?
6) Can you tell us why Spain, France and other European countries have deployed warships to patrol the Gulf of Guinea in the past 15 years?
Please read this thread to see why exercises like this are important. This is the story of Boris Oyebanji, a Nigerian mariner, whose ship was hijacked by pirates from the Niger Delta while he was sailing off the coast of Equatorial Guinea (he had to have a Nigerian Navy escort when he left Nigeria, but the Navy ship returned to base when he got to Equato-Guinean waters. The pirates attacked after the Nigerian Navy ship had left).
The pirates then used him to attack another ship (I think it was a Spanish ship), then the Equato-Guinean Navy mistook him for a pirate and he was detained. The Nigerians authorities had to use a lot of diplomatic effort to get him released.
NazareneMonk: Do we really have insecurity vat sea presently? It's just a little compared to land, these people get plan jare. Them dey map the NDA boys slowly. I think 2023 election might not hold.
In recent years the Niger Delta has overtaken the Horn of Africa as the region with the greatest amount of pirate attacks. The US, Spain, Ghana and other nations would not have been participating in this exercise if it was not important and necessary.
A lot of the goods that we use are imported by ships. Some shipping companies do not want to visit some ports because they are afraid of attacks by pirates.
These are US Navy patrol boats. Will you say that the US Navy is using balloons??
Will you use frigates like NNS Aradu, NNS Okpabana, NNS Thunder, etc to patrol riverine and shallow littoral waters?? Do these people even know the difference between an expeditionary mobile base and a patrol boat? Will you use an expeditionary mobile base to fight pirates in an environment like the Niger Delta?? Do you know that the purpose of this exercise is to practice boarding, search and seizure manoeuvres?? Do you know the exact nature of threats that the Nigerian Navy has to fight against or are you just engaging in comic book fantasies??
Oh My God! I hope we are not going to have another round of ignorance on this thread cos it seems that there are people who don't know what a patrol boat is or the functions of the different types of vessels in a navy.
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