Amazing world of sand dredgers

SEGUN AJIBOYE

 sharp sand in the local parlance, is mostly used for plastering the walls in the construction of houses.

It is no doubt that when the talk is about job hazards, few jobs can boast of more hazards than diving into the bottom of the deep rivers and lagoon to manually dredge sand from the sea bed. The sand, called

Interestingly, the tools of the trade are not often too rare to come by: They include specially-made buckets used to scoop the sand from the sea bed to the surface, two wooden ladders, placed on both sides of the canoe, with which the divers drop into the sea and also find their ways back into the canoe.  Your ability to swim and be able to hold your breath for a couple of minutes, and of course, the canoe, which often times are rickety and ready to give way with the slightest rock by storm.

While these tools seem very essential for a potential sand excavator, but perhaps the most important tool of the trade is courage and boldness.

But for the practitioners of this business, nothing can be farther from the truth to say their job ranks among the world’s riskiest professions. For them, diving into the lagoon is a pastime, which avails them the opportunity to eke out a living and catch fun at the same time.

Probably by coincidence, the job is dominated by Ilaje and Ijaw people from the riverine areas, whose affinity with water is legendary. The practitioners, who mostly grew up along the sea shore, often start the job as little children.

Fatai Adekola, who worked excavating sand from the sea for more than 10 years before quitting to ‘move up’ to other business, few years back, saw himself as a brave and audacious young man. For him, a man who allows fears to rule his life is doomed.

To prove that his bravery is unparalleled, Fatai boasted that nothing under the sea can scare him. According to him, no fish or monster, no matter how big, it is can make him pee in his pants.”This is not a matter of boasting, I don’t see anything in the sea that can scare me. I am not easily scared by anything, and I think that really helped me in the job.”

But all of Fatai’s bravery seems to belong now in the past, precisely more than five years ago. On that day, he came face to face with death and barely escaped being sent to his early grave.

For a potential successful trip to beneath the sea, the weather could not have been better. With the sun shinny brightly overhead, coupled with the cool breeze from the sea, Fatai, and indeed, several others who earned their living from the risky job of excavating sand from the sea bed, could not have prayed for a better weather.

Departure time was 9pm, and Fatai, his boss, who was the leader of the team and three other boys set sail for the sea. “We left the sea shore at exactly 9pm. The plan was that we would work for about four or five hours and be back before 5am.”

But that was not to be. No sooner than the team left the shore than the weather, which had been very friendly all day changed suddenly. “At first it started with the weather becoming cooler. We all thought it would stop, but rather than stop, it gathered momentum and a huge storm started, coupled with wild rain.”

With no single form of cover for their canoe, the rain pounded it, while the storm tossed it up and down until it capsized. That night, the team lost the leader who drowned in the unfortunate incident.

“The storm was so fierce that it tossed us up and down for a long time while we all clung to whatever we could find. But the canoe finally capsized and threw all of us into the sea. By the time the storm calmed down, we discovered that my boss, who was the leader of the team, was nowhere to be found. He had drowned.”

This particular incident turned the brave Fatai into a somewhat lilly-livered man and ended his love for diving into the bed of the sea to scoop sand.

 “You may be right if you say I stopped the job because of that experience. But at the same time, I won’t say that is totally true, because I didn’t stop immediately after the accident. I still worked for sometime before I finally stopped. However, it was one of the reasons why I made up my mind to stop.”

While his love for going into the water to excavate sand lasted, Fatai said he never encountered anything that may scare him. According to him, most of the creatures in the lagoon are fishes of different sizes, including the Octopus, which he claimed they encounter once in a while.

For 36-year old Ife Philips, a BSc Degree holder in Guidance and Counseling, his sojourn into the world of scooping sand from the sea bed started even before he could tell right from wrong.

According Philips, who said he stopped the job to concentrate on his education a few years ago, most young men who ply the trade are forced into it by poverty. “You can look around, all the young men that you see around here are not doing this job for the money. Aside the fact that it is very dangerous, the money they get from it is so meager that it can hardly take care of their needs. But they do it because they don’t want to steal or beg.”

Philips listed three stages that a sand excavator would pass through before venturing into the sea. “You that we all grew up along the shore, so most young boys grow up knowing nothing else, but activities that have to do with the sea. For instance, they start as a little child, when they try their hands on the shovels, trying to scoop sand into little containers. After a while, they may graduate into loading tippers and other vehicles used to transport the sand. And finally, depending on how brave the child is, he may start going with canoes to the sea to excavate sand from the sea bed.”

He further explained that, while the job is not as difficult as most people think, it is, however very “tough and energy-sapping, but very interesting”. While most people would want to believe that the creatures under the sea pose the biggest danger to sand excavators, Philips said their most dangerous enemy is the rain.

Bad weather, he said has killed more sand excavators than any other sea creature. “It is true that we sometimes encounter some dangerous animals in the water, but none of them is as dangerous as the rain. Rains accompanied with strong winds can capsize the canoe, especially when they are loaded with sand. We are always very careful not to go out whenever we feared the rain might come down any time.”

But Philips too once had a near-death experience when his canoe was torpedoed by a powerful wind. Though no life as lost in the accident, Philips said its memory had clung to him ever since.

“Till today, I still cannot explain how I was able to survive the accident. On that particular day, we left the shore and headed for the sea without any premonition of what awaited us. The weather was good and the sky was very clear, so we had no reason to express any fear.

“Though I cannot really recall the exact time, but I think it should be around one in the morning when the rain started. But we knew what was happening, a huge wind followed the rain and tossed the canoe up and down until it capsized. I was able to cling unto a wood that was floating on the sea. I was like that until about 6am when a passing boat rescued all of us. I don’t think I can forget that experience for the rest of my life.”

Philips did not wait for a second mishap to make up his mind about quitting the risky job of diving into the sea bed to scoop sand and move on to the more lucrative and honourable supplying of sand. “I now supply sand to people who buy from us. But you know that it is not everybody that can raise the capital to start supplying sand, so the bulk of our young men are still struggling to survive.”

70-year old John Orimisan is a veteran of many years. Though he quit the job few years ago due to old age, he gathered enough experience to last him a lifetime while he was active in the business. The father of four told The Nation that most of the practitioners are forced into the business because they have little or no other alternatives.

Like most young men who grew up along the coastal areas, Obadiah said he started the business even before he realized what it meant.

“I started very early. What happens in this area is that you start by going to the sea shore with your parents or elder siblings. You would then start trying your hands on one thing or the other. You either go to sea to catch fish or you pack sand and sell. From there, you’ll start going to sea to go into the sea to get the sand.”

He is not surprised that his people are into the business despite the huge risk involved. “How can you blame these young people for going into the business? As a matter of fact, I think they deserve our praises. They do it because they don’t want to steal or beg, so the most honourable thing for them to do is to do the job, even if it meant risking their lives.”

However, his experience in the trade is awe-inspiring. For the two decades that he practiced, he at a stage lost count of the numbers of accidents that threatened to claim his life. Speaking about his experience, many years after he had ‘retired’, Pa Orimisan still had something to smile about.

“This is very funny. Nobody would believe that I would be alive to talk about these stories. There were too many accidents that I cannot just remember how many.”

But a particular accident that readily comes to his mind was the day he lost about four members of his team.

“Many of the accidents happened because we failed to do something or because of what we did. Sometimes, we become overconfident and make some mistakes, which of course you can lead to death on the sea.

“But this particular accident was not anybody’s fault. We had set out to work early so that we could return early. When we got to the point where we wanted to work, we lowered the ladder, and the man who would go into the water went under. But we waited for a long time without seeing him. Another person went to look for him, but also failed to come up.

“At that point, fear gripped everybody in the boat. But to cut the story short, that was how we lost four me. Each of them went into the water and never returned. We later found out that their death was mysterious, that they were killed by a mystery sea creature.”

If you think this experience was strong enough to unnerve Orimisan, you are wrong, because he soon got over it and returned to the sea.

“What else would I have done if I decide to stop the profession I had known most of my life. To do that would have meant that I start something that may bring shame to me and my family.”

However, despite the seeming hardship, Orimisan remains proud of his profession. “I know that you may want to say that the job is hard or that it does not bring good money like your own job, but the truth is that I am very proud that I worked for whatever money I use to feed my family. I am sure that all my people are proud to do the job too. It is better than not doing anything or to go and steal.”

23-year old Seun Adebawo is a student. He, alongside most of friends earn little stipends to support their education by loading sand into vehicles at the shore. Seun, who disclosed that he earns an average of N2000 per day, confessed that the job is tedious. “It is a very tough job. Most of the boys use see in this area do it to survive. Those of us who are in school do it to support our parents. For me, the little that I get goes a long way to help me in school.”

Seun, however, hopes to stop and look for a more dignifying job the moment he completes his higher education. “The first thing I would do is to look for a better job. I will also wish to help my people who are here to do better things with their lives.”

Pa Olatunde Obadiah, a veteran diver, blames the incidents of deaths among divers on inexperience. According to him, most divers who meet with death while plying their trade on the sea die as a result of mistakes or greed.

“In my long time on the job, I discovered that most accidents happen because people make mistakes which they should never have made. For instance, while standing on the edge of the boat, they get carried away, forgetting that it is slippery.

“Secondly, greed also play very important role in most accidents. Some people, out of greed, overload the canoe with sand. Don’t forget that the sand is wet, thereby making the canoe the sink into the water. And whenever there is a serious wind, it makes the water drop into the canoe, thereby making it sink.”

Asked if tales about dangerous encounters with dangerous sea creatures under the water is true, Obadiah looked up, a cheeky smile edged on his lips, and said: “If a sand dredger were to recount his experience inside the water, nobody would want to go into the profession. I believe it is out of cheer bravery that we go into the water, not minding what you’ll encounter. There are different kinds of creatures that will scare the daylight out of you, but we just look at them and go on with our work. For instance, creatures like very big Octopus and other big fishes will swim up to you and go away.”

He, however, confessed that he had never encountered a mystery being or spirit as claimed by some people. “For me, I have never come across any spirit in the waters. But I have heard several stories about divers who had encountered spirit beings inside the water. I believe the stories, because there are many things going on around s that we cannot see with the naked eyes.”