by Lynn Schler
When we were working under ED line, whenever we left Liverpool for Lagos, when we got there, we conducted general maintenance and repairs on the engine before we sail again. Maybe we had just two days to stay in Lagos, but we must conduct this general maintenance. From this general maintenance, we engine crew had a lot of experience about the ship engine. . . . Under national line, we, the engine room crew, were left alone to do the general maintenance and repairs unlike in ED Line, where both European officers and African crew members did the work together. Nigerian officers would abandon everything. Sometimes, when the ship broke down in the national line, we were left alone to repair the engine at night, and that was in the middle of the sea.49
As will be seen in what follows, in the absence of authority and dedicated leadership, the competition over a share of increasingly scarce resources led to a breakdown in discipline and a disregard for maintenance. The scarcity of resources, endemic uncertainty, and the lack of authority also drove employees of the NNSL—from ratings to officers and management—to maximize the opportunities available to them through their employment with the shipping company. This included widespread engagement with private trading of secondhand goods on Nigerian ships, but increasingly also led to a turn toward illegality on the part of crews, officers, captains, and management of the Nigerian line.
As the working class, seamen were the most vulnerable to the scarcity of resources that shaped the history of the NNSL. Their experiences as employees of the Nigerian line testified to their disempowerment and lack of recourse. Already in the early years of NNSL’s existence, seamen complained that despite early promises, the terms of employment on NNSL ships were not an improvement on those of Elder Dempster vessels. Seamen’s first major protest against the NNSL management came in 1966 because of a decision to retire seamen over the age of fifty-five without any compensation. In a Daily Times article regarding the protest, the seamen’s union described the agreement “as most wicked and damaging” and represented a worsening of “the already deplorable condition of the Nigerian seamen since the inception of sea jobs in Nigeria.”50 Nigerian seamen were viewed as contracted labor by the management of the NNSL and were offered none of the same benefits enjoyed by the NNSL management and officers, such as pension plans and cash advances for buying cars.51 By contrast, already in 1964 the management of Elder Dempster considered offering basic benefits to Nigerian seamen employed on their ships. Discussions were held around the option of offering employment benefits and pensions for at least a portion of Nigerian seamen, and some form of compensation for those who retired after working for the company for many years. Records from an Elder Dempster management meeting in Lagos revealed that while the management was not anxious to extend these benefits to the seamen, they recognized the inevitability of granting some basic rights, and acknowledged that seamen who had dedicated many years of service to Elder Dempster were entitled to them. As the meeting notes recorded: “Mr. Glasier said that he did not wish that this matter would be put forward or even suggested to the seamen or the Union at the present moment, but it would be a useful thing to clear one’s thoughts on the matter in case at some time in the future we wanted to make the offer. He then went on to say, what he had in mind was some reward for a man who had completed 20, 25, 30 or even upwards years of service.”52 The management of the NNSL, on the other hand, showed no inclination to extend basic employment benefits to Nigerian seamen. On the contrary, seamen were seen as an unskilled and expendable workforce. In an interview with a former training and development officer of the NNSL, Isaac Bezi, seamen were described as migrant labor: “The ratings came in as migrant workers or laborers. You need no experience before you could become a rating. Ratings are like casual workers or auxiliary staff on board, not permanent staff. Ratings were not part of NNSL development.”53
The characterization of seamen as “casual labor” rather than permanent employees of the NNSL meant that seamen received a salary only for those periods when they were signed on to ships. While waiting for employment back at home, they received no compensation. By contrast, British seamen received a weekly allocation for time ashore.54 The arrangement caused great hardships for Nigerian seamen, particularly during the slowdowns and recessions that plagued the global shipping industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Over the first decade of operations, the number of seamen actively employed by the NNSL fell by half. According to archival records, there were 1,543 seamen employed between 1962 and 1963, while that number dropped to 863 in 1968.55 In his notes from a visit to West Africa in 1969, Malcolm Glasier described the scene outside the seamen’s union office in Lagos, where large numbers of unemployed seamen congregated, noting, “I was told that this is a permanent feature and was not specially arranged for my visit.” Union president Benson Yogoi told the British officials that his chief worry was “the constant pressure of unemployed seamen.”56
In an effort to alleviate the situation, the seamen’s union negotiated for a rotational hiring system from the 1970s onward. According to this system, seamen on the register were given employment for six months at a time, and then dropped off to enable others to sign on. While the arrangement was initially deemed preferable to removing large numbers of seamen from the register, the system opened the way to abuses. Rather than providing security, the rotational system made seamen feel increasingly vulnerable, as one seaman explained:
The rotational longshore was initially fair to all but later it became a punishment. . . . The Nigerian line wanted to lay us off because of redundancy. But the union insisted that rather than totally lay off all seamen like it was done in the railway sector, let us rotate the job among seamen. Every six month we will rotate seamen so that everyone would be fairly treated and will not go hungry. So those who have been in town for so long, we called them “longshore.” When the ship comes, those who have been longshore took over. . . . But the [NNSL] overstaffed the crew members so that the six-month longshore became one year, one year and a half, and longshore seamen in town never had their turn as was due. This made people to succumb to the whims and caprices of the company, and they became totally submissive. So, before seamen could get job, they must be ready to obey. Even the union complicated matters. They kept the arrival of the ship secret and they invited their folks and friends to come and work in the ship, so seamen were at the mercy of both the company and the union. Whenever we asked questions, the union told us that the call was an emergency and according to the shipping law, whenever there is an emergency call, you can invite any available person. So, the union connived with the captains to sideline seamen.57
As seen in this seaman’s testimony, the increasing competition for work opened the way for conflicts and abuses. Against this backdrop, tensions were increasingly framed in ethnic terms, and Nigerian ships soon became another playing field for the ethnic politics that shaped the broader Nigerian political landscape. Seamen invoked ethnic identities in explaining the roots and causes of onboard conflicts, and often framed the discriminatory practices of the ships’ officers in ethnic terms. This engagement with ethnic identities can be linked to what Bruce Berman has described as the instrumental use of ethnicity among working classes in postcolonial Africa to make demands for the redistribution of resources.58 In Nigeria in particular, scholars have put forth a utilitarian view of ethnicity, arguing that ethnic identification has been an expedient reaction to the scarcity and competition for resources in the postindependence era.59 As Dauda Abubakar has argued, ethnicity was “activated, mobilized and deployed as a resource for the pursuit of political and economic power.”60 Ships might therefore be identified as another arena in the Nigerian landscape where struggles for power and resources were contested along ethnic lines.61 Early visions of Nigerian unity among crews of the NNSL gave way to ethnic divisions, and seamen began to associate the misconduct of officers with their ethnic background, as can be seen in the testimonies of two Ijaw seamen:
The captain was an Igbo man, but I can’t remember his name.
This captain and the Calabar chief officer were in their rooms drinking. After everyone had finished eating and left, these two officers came out and look at me and asked, “Are you annoyed?” because I waited for them even when I was supposed to be resting. I did not answer. These officers were like that, they abused us and underrated us. Another Ijaw captain took over, he was very good to crew members. When another Igbo captain came on board he had a very bad character. He abused my kinsmen indirectly. For example, he said Ijaw people performed a rite by putting a newborn baby inside the water for three to four days. He was fond of this statement. Then, one day I replied to him, I said when an Igbo man eats pounded yam, he will rub some pounded yam on his leg before he eats. I also told him that when an Igbo man is not potent enough to impregnate his wife, he gave her to his younger brother to impregnate the woman on his behalf. With these responses, we became enemies.62
I was on board of a ship and there was this Calabar officer who told me that the glass cup I washed was not clean and he gave it back to me. As a pantryman, I had to wash the glass cup again. Imagine a man like me washed a glass cup and it is not clean?63
The anti-Igbo sentiment expressed by Ijaw seamen was linked to resentment over what they saw as the quick promotion of newly recruited Igbo seamen to positions of authority, bypassing the Ijaw, who prided themselves on their longer history of seafaring. As ethnic tensions rose, they contributed to an overall sense that work for the NNSL led to the Nigerianization of seafaring.
SECONDHAND TRADING ON NNSL SHIPS
As previously seen, the trade in secondhand goods provided African seamen with a much-needed supplement to the meager wages they earned on colonial vessels. Nigerian seamen had hoped that the move to employment in the NNSL would result in better terms of employment, but they soon discovered that the conditions of work were not substantially improved under the Nigerian line. For many, the outcome was quite the opposite, and the move to the NNSL resulted in an increased sense of uncertainty and vulnerability. In this context, Nigerian seamen needed to rely even more heavily on their earnings from independent trade. As one seaman explained, the secondhand trade alleviated the insecurity they experienced as employees of the NNSL:
There were some exploitations in terms of wages. Probably because we were allowed to do some trading that is why the facts did not come out. . . . Because of the free trading, nobody cared and nobody bothered to find out. And that was what they used to exploit us and they exploited us successfully. . . . The NNSL suffered from a lot of mismanagement unfortunately, it wasn’t given to those who have the company line at heart. So, they grab and grab and grab until they sank the company. . . . Seamen never bother much because we were benefiting from the free trade. We were doing our best to make sure that the vessels were moving from port to port and distributing cargo from place to place.64
In terms of the independent trade, some seamen felt that it was better to work for the NNSL than the European companies. Several reported that independent trade was easier to conduct on the ships of the Nigerian line, as some Nigerian captains did not impose the same kinds of restrictions as were seen on the British ships:
We had some level of freedom. In Nigeria shipping line, we had a Nigerian captain, chief officer, and probably a British chief engineer. . . . They were good because when we traveled on board we were not restricted on what to buy, we could buy a large quantity of goods, unlike in ED line, where we were restricted. There were some British captains who never allowed us and if anyone was caught, he would be paid off. Sometimes some of us did not make more than two trips, they were paid off because of these captains . . . but when we had the National Shipping Line, we had liberty and we did more trade than in British ships.65
Indeed, many of the British captains took a hard line with seamen caught with goods on board that were not declared on the crew manifest. As one British captain wrote with regard to a greaser found with lappa clothes on the Ebani in 1976, “Preboye was told by the master that he would take into consideration his previous good behavior but for his own good and that of the discipline of the ship he would be repatriated immediately.”66 Nigerian captains, on the other hand, demonstrated more compassion for the seamen’s status and understood that the trade in secondhand goods was a legitimate way for the ratings to augment their earnings. As one captain interviewed said, “Yes, some crew and officers traded in [drugs]. This was why we allowed people who were doing secondhand legitimate trade to do so instead of carrying of drugs.”67
While some Nigerian captains tolerated the independent trade, others actually took an active role in the trade themselves. Former seamen, captains, and management of the NNSL all testified that NNSL employees of every level took advantage of the opportunities opened up through the shipping line and participated in independent trade. Moreover, when officers and management got involved, the scope of the trade reached entirely new proportions. Unlike seamen who had meager resources, captains and management had money to invest and more freedom to develop a lucrative side business. In some instances, the independent trading interests of captains and management took priority over the official business of NNSL ships. As one former manager said, “Some people could buy up to one thousand television sets and there would not be room to carry cargo.”68 Those with abundant resources and an entrepreneurial spirit could develop very profitable ventures. Several seamen recalled the business success of one captain who began importing cow’s feet into Nigeria, earning himself the nickname “Captain Cow Foot.” His initiative tapped into a large market in Nigeria and later spread to England. As one seaman who conducted Captain Cow Foot’s business for him recalled:
In those days, I would go to slaughterhouses in Europe and booked for all the legs of the cattle slaughtered for that day. We eat them and trade with them. Sometimes, I will load about ten freezers on board with the cow legs. [We traded] to the Nigerians here in Lagos. In Europe they were thrown to the dogs, but we eat them here in Nigeria. From this, we enlightened the Europeans that the cow foot was edible. Very delicious, and at the end of the day, the European started to put them into cans. Today, it’s now canned food in Europe. When the English discovered that this was good for Africans, they decided to can it.69
This particular seaman recognized that through his good relations with captains, he could gain access to trade on this larger scale. He explained that the blurring of lines between Nigerian officers and seamen created more opportunities for him than on British ships:
The British officer would distinguish himself from the ratings. But in terms of being Nigerians, we traded together and bought merchandize together to sell in Nigeria together and in terms of food, everybody was Nigerian, so we fed on the Nigerian diet. One thing we also enjoyed in the Nigerian vessels was a lot of free trading. We bought things to sell and everybody enjoyed it. Most Nigerian captains were businessmen too. We ratings do their business for them. I was close to three of our captains who wanted to sail with me all the time. In fact, they looked for me around when I was on leave to sail with them because I handled their businesses for them satisfactorily. So, that is a lot of evidence of free trade on the NNSL vessels. Most of us that traded have our personal houses and live good.70
This particular seaman reaped the benefits of an NNSL organizational culture that allowed those in positions of power to exploit every opportunity to improve their personal standing, and to reward those in their inner circle. But this seaman was clearly an exception, and the vast majority of those interviewed recounted a very different type of experience. Many claimed that Nigerian captains sought greater profits for themselves, and they attempted to maximize their own trading opportunities by limiting or eliminating the involvement of seamen in the independent trade.71 Seamen blamed the failure of the NNSL on the selfishness and greed of the Nigerian captains:
When we had our own ship, initially, we were paid overtime and we added that to our little salary to buy different items abroad to sell. Later, ship officers planned and they stopped paying
us overtime. They alleged that if we were paid overtime, we were going to buy more items abroad than them and when the ship officers bought their own items, we carried and loaded it in the ship for them. We were really used as slaves by these Nigerian chief officers. And they also threatened us that they would pay us off, in Lagos. There was nothing we could do. There are a lot of stories to tell.72
For seamen, what began as a symbol of freedom and opportunity ended in dysfunction and disappointment. In interviews, seamen voiced a broad range of complaints regarding employment on the NNSL: the arbitrary punishments employed by Nigerian ship officers, the lack of discipline among the entire crew of NNSL ships, and the absence of a maintenance culture on the ships. But the most virulent critique was aimed at the trading practices of the Nigerian officers of the NNSL, which grew at such a fast rate that soon entire ships were used for their private trading purposes. Not only were crew barred from importing their own goods, but they were compelled to carry, load, and unload the officers’ cargo, without any compensation for this work:
The European captains even understood us better than our own black Nigeria captains. European captains were very good. [Nigerian captains] treated us as slaves. The Nigerian captains often asked you to carry their goods they brought on board and this you can carry from morning till night outside your normal duty. The Nigerian captains punished us. All the captains collected their pension, but we were never paid. Captains did not help us during and after liquidation. Many of our fellow seamen have died because no money to take care of ourselves. We are suffering and dying. Some of us are sleeping under the bridge.73
