CHRISTMAS DAY TRAGEDY: Dockworker Dies At Tin Can Port

—As MWUN PG, Adeyanju Lampoon Five Star Logistics Terminal, Stevedore Contractor for Negligence

By DAPO OLAWUNI

Tragedy struck at the Tin Can Island Port on Wednesday 25th of December 2024 when a dockworker working onbaord a vessel, MSC Samu died at the Five Star Logistics Terminal, Lagos.

DAILY TREND gathered exclusively that a liebher crane matched down the dockworker completely and broke his head, he died instantly. He was burried on Thursday.

Confirming the ugly incident to DAILY TREND via a telephone conversation on Friday, the President General of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) Comrade Adeyanju Adewale described the death of the worker as negligence on the part of the terminal operators and the stevedoring contractor.

Adeyanju has since paid condolence visit to the terminal on Thursday 26th, alongside other leadership of the union.
While inspecting the terminal and the site of the accident, the MWUN PG bemoan several death traps inside the terminal which is not conducive for workers.

“Stevedoring is not a factory work, it is a global work, in other climes, they are well taken care of. But here, its not like that. You have a vessel that involves close to 50 to 60 men working, and you have only one supervisor onboard supervising them.

“How do you expect the supervisor to know what is going on at the front, in the middle and at the back? Is he a robot?

I was mad at the management of that company because this is anti-labour practices, i discovered that many of the workers were putting on bathroom sleepers instead of safety boots, no coverall uniforms and helmets. That is how many of the terminals treat dockworkers

NIMASA should know what is going on now,because i am sure they dont even know that is going on

The late dockworker evacuated all the security personnel that slept under the Crane. They have two supervisors that are supposed to manage the movement of the Crane, but they were not on ground, this is pure negligence

Most of the terminal operators do not care about the welfare of the workers, it is only few of them that know about safety, we are talking about safety of human lives. If it was a responsible company, they ought to have come out by now and state what really happened” he told our correspondent.

While addressing the workers inside the terminal on Thursday, the MWUN PG said that “The affected boy is not the staff that is supposed to evacuate everybody, but being a responsible worker that believes in safety, he urged everyone to leave the place.
The People that were supposed to do the real job were not there.

“He is a wonderful boy, for evacuating those guys, and for the two gentlemen that supposed to tell him thank you and ask himself to leave, there was nobody on ground”

He condemned the stevedoring contractor of the terminal for having only one supervisor onboard and onshore while working on a large vessel.

“This is terrible, these are the things I have been telling you guys that say you want to take over from me, this is pure negligence, this is not port operation. A big vessel of this nature should have three supervisors, two on-board and one assure so that they can rotate.

“We would write report against the stevedoring contractor too for their negligence, how can only one person be managing close to forty workers, its not done anywhere” Adeyanju fumed