It was a story that Kofi Quarshie, one of the three Ghanaians on MT Maro, could repeat easily. He was also resident in Cell D2. He was often to be seen walking around the yard in a prayerful daze. He was glad to share handbooks on Jehovah, and talk about his country to fill up the time.
‘There are 10 regions in Ghana’, he would say, in case you didn’t know, and he would begin to name them slowly, with appropriate pauses in between, as if he was walking through each region, and meeting his old friends and acquaintances, his eyes misty with remembrance.
‘Follow me through Volta Region, Greater Accra Region, Eastern Region, Western Region, Ashanti Region, Brom-Ahafo Region, Northern Region, Upper East Region, Upper West Region’.
Then he would pause, as if distracted by something indefinite.
‘You haven’t named them all. There’s one more region left’.
‘Really? Which one did I miss out’?
And Kofi would proceed to walk through the regions all over again, ticking them off on his fingers.
Kofi lives in Tema. He speaks Twi, one of the widely spoken languages in the Volta Region, precisely Agbozume. He speaks of the Tete Quarshie Interchange in Accra, the best known terminal from all around Ghana, and he couldn’t wait to get back there again. ‘The best place to meet a friend is the Accra Mall in the interchange’, he declared.
Even so, Kofi is widely travelled. He is quick to speak of his experiences around the world, and to dream about the joy of sailing in the day and at night, the wind in your face, the moon and stars up above the world so high. ‘I have been on board rigs, drilling ships and merchant ships’, he says, recalling in the same breath the many countries he’s been to. ‘I’ve travelled by sea to Senegal, South Africa, Angola, Cameroun, Togo, and Benin Republic’.
And then Kofi visited Nigeria for the first time, and landed in prison for the first time in his life. He was the Motor Man on the vessel, MT Maro, the third officer in control. His job was to conduct regular surveillance over the machinery in a bid to keep them well maintained and ship-shape. He boarded the ship for the first time on 27 June 2014, sailing to Lagos and apparently heading from there to meet with a sister vessel in Cameroun.
‘I don’t know why. My duty was to ensure that the machines work perfectly to take us to destination and back. And then we had an engine problem. I was down below when I noticed that we had dropped anchor in Nigerian waters. A vessel came alongside us and when I came up, I saw that it was the Nigerian Navy. They were querying the captain. They picked him and one crew member, Raphael.
‘The captain returned the following day, and we thought the matter was settled. Instead, two Agip personnel came on board another vessel, MV Tefriq. They inspected our pumps, hoses, and the entire tanker and found everything normal. We were not carrying arms.
‘We didn’t have crude oil. But they insisted on taking away Captain Robert as well as Raphael, Pradeep and Ankit-Rana. All four were taken on the second day to Cape Formosa, and then to Yenagoa. When the rest of us got to Cape Formosa, we didn’t see them’.
Kofi recalls that three Indians went back to MT Maro accompanied by four officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to check the vessel again. Two of the Indians were wounded on the last day of Formosa, being 31 July 2014.
‘Joyful and Mohammed were commanded to jump from MT Maro to the Navy gunboat. Joyful had a severe fracture in his leg, and Mohammed ended up with a swollen foot. We were formally handed over to the EFCC on 31 July, and detained in their cell in Port Harcourt.
‘The injured Indian sailors endured the pain, moaning night and day, for two weeks before they were moved to hospital. An agent of MT Maro came to save them from the torture. We spent three months in EFCC detention. At a point, we were up to 65 inmates in the cell. There was just no space. We were walking on top of each other.
‘In the end, they prepared papers for court, and we were remanded at Okaka prison on 28 October 2014. Since then, we’ve been to court about six times with one excuse or another for not hearing the case. We’re getting close to two years in captivity’.
The case was scheduled for hearing on 6 November, 3 December, 16 December 2015, and 8 and 9 January 2016. Yet the court didn’t sit. They were said to be on strike. The last scheduled appearance should have been on 26 February 2015, but no word came from the Federal High Court, Yenagoa, till the movement to Calabar in April.
Born in Tadzewu on 26 April 1974, Kofi Eric Quarshie attended Ashama No. 1 Junior Secondary School, and finished in 1990. Then he proceeded to St Paul’s Technical School, Kukwatumi in the Eastern Region, finishing in 1995.
Two years later, in 1997, he gained admission into Ho Polytechnic, Volta Region, to study Auto Engineering. Between 2000 and 2002, he took courses in Marine Engineering at the Maritime University, Nungwa, Accra.
Nothing, he says, will stop him from being in love with the sea. ‘I will still be a sailor even after prison, and Jehovah is my witness. Real freedom is out in the open sea’.
