The thirteen Filipino seamen who were last week convicted by Justice Chukwura Nnamani of the Federal High Court in Benin City for stealing crude oil have been released from jail. This was confirmed yesterday by Filipino Vice President and Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), Mr Noli De Castro.
The 13 Filipino seafarers were found guilty for stealing or illegally transporting oil, known as oil bunkering. Justice Nnamani in his judgement, sentenced the 13 accused persons to five years imprisonment, or a fine of N1,000,000 each. The 13 Filipino seamen were on board MT Akuada and were contracted by the Filipino manning agency, SEAGEM.
When they were convicted last Friday, De Castro immediately asked SEAGEM to hasten the payment of fine for the immediate release of the seamen
But yesterday, De Castro said the Greek owners of the ship, Corinthian City, paid the fine for the release of each of the Filipino seaman.The Filipino Vice President said yesterday: “I’m sure that the families of these 13 Filipino seamen are very happy with this news. I hope that their experience will serve as a lesson to OFWs and employment agencies to first make a background check on the potential employers and the kind of job that the OFWs will be taking abroad.”
The Filipino Vice President expressed disappointment with SEAGEM, which is facing several complaints and is now under preventive suspension. The conviction of the 13 seamen in Nigeria is the second incident that involved the local mining agency.
Earlier, nine Filipino OFWs contracted by SEAGEM were stranded in Nigeria after they escaped from armed pirates.
De Castro pointed out that there is an existing deployment ban on Nigeria, which Seagem violated.
The Vice President said he had received a report from the Philippine Embassy in Abuja that the National Seafarers Welfare Board of Nigeria has expressed its concern regarding the frequency of oil bunkering incidents involving Filipino seafarers.
“The Nigerian Welfare Board suggested that to address this problem, there is a need to inform all Filipino seafarers, private employment entities and concerned government agencies to check the type of shipping operations, place of operation and where the ship is going before they sign up,” De Castro said.
A team of naval personnel from Forward Operation Base (FOB) had arrested the Filipinos with 12,000 metric tons of petroleum products which was already on an outbound transit around Escravos Breakwater and were subsequently handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
Seven Ghanaians and a Nigerian were also recently arrested in Delta with stolen petroleum products worth over N300million. The eight of them have been arraigned at a Benin Federal High Court.