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On 31st July, 2010, Mr. Ben Okakpu, a
staff of AMOSCO Nig. Ltd fell from the
ship JACK RYAN into the sea and has
since not been rescued. The incident
occurred in Akpo which is an off-shore
drilling point off Port-Harcourt, which
is also referred to as OML 130. Mr.
Okapkpu is a graduate of mechanical
engineering from Nnamdi Azikiwe
University and had worked with AMOSCO
for about 3 years.
Before this incident Mr. Ben Okakpu had
been employed by AMOSCO Nig Ltd to work
aboard a ship called JACK RYAN. The
ship is owned by Transocean Ltd and is
engaged in off shore oil drilling.
On the day the incident occurred Mr. Ben
Okakpu fell into the sea along with two
of his colleagues who are foreigners.
Transocean only rescued the two
expatriates while leaving Mr. Okakpu
behind. These persons were rescued
within 1 hour after the incident.
Immediately after rescuing these two
expatriates, Transocean then waited 3
hours for a helicopter to arrive before
making any rescue attempt on Mr. Okakpu.
When the Okakpu family did not see their
son on the date of his expected return
from his off shore post they made
several frantic attempts to secure
information as to his whereabouts from
both Transocean Ltd and AMOSCO Ltd. All
these attempts met a brick wall. During
this same period several national
dailies published stories in which the
events of 31st July, 2010 were
chronicled. This only served to fuel
the anxiety of the Okakpu family as the
dailies never indicated the identity of
the person said to be still missing.
From the circumstances leading to the
disappearance of Mr. Okakpu it would
appear that Mr. Okakpu was neither
provided the necessary safety gear that
would have guaranteed his safety at sea
nor was he given the training required
to enable him survive any accident that
would occur while at sea. The officials
of Transocean who were contacted by the
Okakpu family instead of attending to
the problems of the anxious family
stonewalled claiming that their company
had nothing to do with the Okakpu
family.
The Okakpus were then forced to retain
lawyers to act on their behalf. Only
then did AMOSCO Nig. Ltd and Transocean
admit that Mr. Ben Okakpu fell into the
sea while at work. Having failed to
rescue him for more than three (3) weeks
AMOSCO and Transocean have now
classified Mr. Ben Okakpu as dead.
Lawyers to the Okakpu family have since
written letters demanding that both AMOSCO
and Transocean provide details of
efforts to locate and rescue Okakpu
after the incident but they are yet to
receive a positive response.
Up till now, the Okakpus are yet to
receive their son’s corpse.
Signed:
For: FESTUS KEYAMO CHAMBERS
OLUMAYOWA OLUWOLE, ESQ
VITALIS AHAOTU, ESQ.
Counsel
Counsel
jimoh lateef’s comment:
You see as an industrial and labour relations expert,our labour law are all obsolete
and need urget attention from our law makers.like yoruba adage which says our child
will not have good buttock and put a buttock-lace in another man's child."our own is
our own".
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