Nation on Board

by Lynn Schler

  But what was truly disturbing to the management of Elder Dempster was Khayam’s habit of flying into a rage in his meetings with management, and frequently accusing them of racial discrimination. As one official wrote, “No doubt you have heard of the more recent activities of our friend Omar Khayam and the Nigerian Union of Seamen. It does seem as if he is continuing to stir up trouble mostly in Elder’s ships, using the black vs. white theme.”30 Khayam often raised the issue of racism in his confrontations with union officials. He was particularly accusatory toward the Lagos crew manager, Colin Dyson. It was reported that Khayam told Dyson that “he did not know better than a lawyer merely because [he] had white skin.” Khayam threatened Dyson that the pendulum of evolution was swinging in favor of his people and against imperialist countries. He accused the management of treating seamen as slaves, driving them with ships.31 Sidi Khayam’s presence had a galvanizing effect, drawing the entire union to a more militant position. The general secretary’s activist approach forced the other officers to become more vigorous in their pursuit of the seamen’s interests in order to maintain the support of the rank and file. It was only after Khayam’s arrival that Ekore and Akpan Monday adopted an incendiary tone with management, and embraced the same confrontational discourse of racial oppression that they had previously avoided.

  While the shipping companies were willing to enter into a dialogue with a legitimate representative of African labor to negotiate compromises with regard to pay scales or benefits, the employers were not willing to engage with a provocative racial discourse. Thus, Elder Dempster initially refused to recognize General Secretary Sidi Khayam, claiming that he was appointed illegitimately. Unofficially, they schemed to get him deported from Nigeria.32

  But the changes in the balance and nature of power in the era of decolonization meant that simply deporting Khayam was not an option. Quite the opposite dynamic was set in motion. As general elections approached in Nigeria in 1959, shipping companies were instructed by government officials on “the paramount importance of employers recognizing trade union leaders and always negotiating with trade unions on all matters where difference of viewpoint exists.”33 As the elected leader of the seamen’s union, any attempt to diffuse Khayam’s influence would have to be more circumspect. Officials at shipping companies could count on the support of some key Nigerian politicians who were equally in favor of getting rid of Khayam. This group of Westernized elites owed their positions of influence to their proximity to colonial rulers, and they did not favor the radical approach of leaders like Khayam. These officials realized, however, that the legally elected general secretary of the seamen’s union could be discredited and neutralized only through legitimate means. As Minister of Labor Nwokedi suggested to the Elder Dempter representative in Lagos in 1959:

  Khayam is unfavorable and it would be best to see him out of the country. But the Ministry would like the seamen themselves to get rid of Khayam and they consider that the only way to achieve this would be for Khayam to be shown up beyond doubt, on a wider screen than at present, as an irresponsible person not working in the seamen’s best interests. The proposed method for “exposing” Khayam would be to have a “trade dispute” and for the Labour Department to appoint a conciliator. It could be expected that Khayam’s behaviour during conciliation meetings would finally make clear to all his unreasonableness and irresponsibility . . . resulting in the seamen denouncing and dismissing him.34

  Nwokedi’s proposed strategy lays bare the broader changes set in motion in the era of decolonization. Despite their dissatisfaction, neither local politicians nor shipping companies could simply depose of Sidi Khayam. Both politicians and employers had to endure the controversial leader the seamen had elected to represent their cause.

  As it turns out, Sidi Khayam’s relationship to the rank-and-file membership of the union was no less antagonistic, and his approach toward them was equally belligerent. A few months after taking office, he issued a statement to the general membership, instituting an uncompromising expression of his rule over the organization and demanding unambiguous obedience from the seamen union members. The statement said:

  Our plan is to run the Nigerian Union of Seamen on a pattern different from the gangster-tactics of yesteryears. . . . We have had enough complaints, some are true, some are not. But the damn truth is, that there is [an] absence of evidence that some of us are really serious seamen. From now [on] the union will take steps to rub in some discipline for those who are caught on petty-theft, underhanded business, smart rackets and fishy deals. It’s none of our business to defend such mess.

  . . . Any person whose acts will likely prevent all seamen from getting their rights and respect, who wants to clown around his job and shows us up as drones to shipping captains will get a fast punch out the union door. He will get a black eye from the union before the shipping company does it. Any guy who is feeling lazy can drop on shore to doze or booze about the place, but he is not going to pull down our prestige or weaken the effort the Nigerian Union of Seamen wants to put up for decent and hardworking African crews.

  Members who feel a bit big or want to bluff their way by looking too sulky for instructions can just ask themselves how much they get for the same job white crews perform.

  . . . And anyone who figures we don’t mean business can start the stew and see how it tastes. We mean every damn decision we have put down here—that he will be thrown out of the N.U.S. picture outright.35

  Khayam’s sharp approach did not translate into significant gains for seamen, and each rebuff from management or the seamen themselves sent him into a new rage. His luck changed, however, in the aftermath of the Apapa strike of 1959, an event he played no role in initiating, but one that he masterfully exploited to his advantage.

  THE MV APAPA STRIKE OF 1959

  On 27 May 1959, the MV Apapa vessel arrived in Lagos. The crew met with General Secretary Sidi Khayam to complain of ill-treatment of the African crew during their most recent voyage. At the root of the seamen’s grievances was what they identified as the systematic discrimination of black seamen on board Elder Dempster ships. They had several specific examples of this discrimination, claiming, for instance, that African seamen were limited to purchasing only Woodbines, Senior Service, and Capstan cigarettes, while the European crew was allowed to have any available brand. The seamen also complained that the bartender watered down the beer of Africans, but not the European crew’s. They charged that the newly appointed chief steward denied Africans steak, chicken, and turkey, and instead served them only pork. The crew also suspected that the chief steward had ordered customs officers to perform in-depth searches of the belongings of crew members who had complained of the new arrangements regarding food, cigarettes, and beer. The most serious allegations were made against the second steward, who had become violent with crew, “pushing men about with his hands, cursing them and almost causing a physical fight.” This same second steward demanded that the crew wash his car during working hours, and when the men refused he threatened to blacklist them from further employment.36

  In the weeks leading up to the strike, Sidi Khayam was busy trying to oust the executive officers from the union, and organized a no-confidence vote at a delegates conference. In the midst of this turmoil, he met with the Apapa crew and heard their grievances, but he actually discouraged a walkout and persuaded them to sail again with the Apapa on 2 June for Liverpool.37 The Apapa arrived in Liverpool on 15 June. On 17 June the Nigerian crew, represented by a local African resident of Liverpool rather than the seamen’s union, submitted a letter to Malcolm Glasier, director of Elder Dempster, detailing their complaints and demanding the removal of the Apapa’s European chief steward, second steward, and chief storekeeper from the ship. Not surprisingly, the company refused this request. Some attempts were made at negotiating with the crew, but when the demand for removing the European bosses from the ship was refused, seventy-five members of the African crew walked off the ship on Wednesday, 24 June.
They went from the docks to the Stanley House in Liverpool.

  It was also reported on this day that a “shore-African” named Mr. Ogun went to the docks to collect men from five other ships to join the striking Apapa crew at the Stanley House. A meeting was called that night of all the African crews in port, hosted by a few local African residents of Liverpool, and with Ogun acting as chairman. Unable to force the crew back to work, Elder Dempster decided on Thursday, 25 June, that the Apapa would sail without her African crew. On Sunday, 28 June, the Apapa crew was repatriated to Nigeria via airplane, and the rest of the striking crews returned to their ships. The arrival of the Apapa crew in Lagos was followed by a mass protest along the marina in Lagos. Protesters included the returning Apapa crew as well as all Nigerian crews located in port, officers of the union, and many of the seamen’s wives and children. Carrying placards calling for an end to discrimination and the payment of overtime, this group marched to the prime minister’s house and demanded a meeting. Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa went out to the street to hear their grievances, and then invited a delegation of representatives, including Sidi Khayam, in for a meeting. In the aftermath, it was agreed that a committee of inquiry would be formed to investigate the seamen’s grievances.

  This strike that began in Liverpool was initiated by the seamen, but there were clearly influences from local Liverpool residents, including members of the Socialist Labour League, with both local British and African members in contact with ships’ crews and representing their interests to Elder Dempster.38 Elder Dempster’s general manager, Glasier, later claimed that the local figures who had incited the unrest, including Mr. Ogun, Mr. Akinsaya, and Mr. Osa, were members of the Communist Party. As he wrote, “We have had information and knowledge that the matter has been fostered and followed up by a group of people in Liverpool and London whose activities I personally greatly deplore.”39 The role of diaspora Africans and British Communists in the inspiration, organization, leadership, and carrying-out of the MV Apapa strike is highly significant, particularly when compared to the inaction of the Nigerian seamen’s union’s leadership. Liverpool-based Africans, including Mr. Akinsanya, began meeting with representatives of Elder Dempster to complain about working conditions on board the Apapa one month before the strike. Two days before the strike, an anonymous telegram was sent from Liverpool to Elder Dempster Lines, warning of the impending walkout. When the strike broke out, it was members of the National Union of Nigeria in Liverpool that organized crew protests and rallied seamen from other ships to join in the walkout. As soon as the strike broke out, they also sent a written protest to the company, calling themselves the “African Defense Association.” The letter declared that their group was made up of the “African Intelligentsia and Literary Detectives of this city” for the purpose of “protecting the socio-economic interests of our Nigerian Seafaring brothers” and was symbolically signed “Sojourner Truth.” The authors drew direct links between the plight of the seamen on the Apapa and the situation of blacks in England, as they wrote that the crews “are victims of racial discrimination at sea just as we too experience the taste of colour prejudice in Britain ashore, both at work and at play,” and they claimed that racism bred “British national malaise and trauma.” In makeup and intent, the organization represented a solidarity bridging Nigerians across the diaspora, and reflected an alliance moving beyond the borders of the mother country: “In defense of Reason and In Honour’s Cause, we speak of Africa and golden joys and as Nigerian Ambassadors of Goodwill we remain in friendships’ garden always.”40

  Nigerian Seamen in the Aftermath of the Apapa Strike

  As far as Elder Dempster was concerned, the strike on board the Apapa did not create any immediate disaster. In fact, the news of the ship that sailed without its African crew provided some comic relief for the British press, which recounted harrowing tales of Apapa passengers cleaning their own rooms and serving their own food. Elder Dempster contributed to the delegitimizing of the seamen’s strike by publishing a press release that ridiculed the impact of the absent African crew on the journey, and applauded the ease with which European crews mastered the tasks normally taken on by African seamen:

  One quartermaster in addition to his normal duties on the 4 to 8 watch, and his helpers, have washed 70,400 knives, forks, spoons, etc. which he can now see in his sleep. It has been reported that he has kept a complete set as a souvenir. . . . The Chief Officer and his many Minions have been seen in the Laundry pressing the Cooks Whites and Aprons, to say nothing of Nappies and other unmentionables. . . . The Chef and his merry men (what a lovely bunch they are) can certainly slide food on to the plate even if on occasion a surreptitious thumb was used.41

  The passengers themselves apparently approached the whole incident with equal amusement, and were duly pleased to receive “inconvenience compensation” from Elder Dempster at the end of the voyage. This compensation boosted everyone’s spirits, as the captain reported, “Many passengers joked about ‘house-keeping money’ and, from the way they passed direct from Bureau to shop, I can predict an all time high in shop sales.”42

  While the company did not suffer any financial damages, the management of Elder Dempster did explore the possibility of initiating legal proceedings against the crew and local residents of Liverpool who were responsible for inciting crew members to breach their contract of service. The legal advice given to the company was to avoid such measures, and to focus on a swift return to routine sailings. In part, this counsel was based on an awareness of the political climate in the UK, as the solicitor wrote, “It has to be borne in mind that the Magistrates, and also the majority of judges, are desperately anxious at the present time to demonstrate clearly that they have no trace of political or racial bias, and in doing so are liable to lean too far in the opposite direction.”43 Following this counsel, the company dropped plans to prosecute the Apapa crew or any residents of Liverpool involved in the incident.

  From the Nigerian government’s perspective, the lingering threat of discontented seamen in Lagos was of deep concern. Prime Minister Balewa took a personal interest in the situation, as he feared that the incident would spread to other industries and incite broader unrest. He encouraged all the parties involved to find a negotiated settlement.44 It was decided to appoint a committee of inquiry to investigate the incident and make recommendations to resolve the conflict. According to Fred Cooper, this was a typical response of late colonial regimes wanting to diffuse the impact of strikes: “Commissions of inquiry into major strikes were used to delineate . . . problem areas” and determine the “techniques and resources” that would be used “to set things right.” Rather than formulating effective solutions for workers’ grievances, these commissions ultimately contributed to the disempowerment of labor movements. Cooper claimed that investigations conducted in the framework of these inquiries and the final reports they produced “became apparatuses of surveillance, shapers of discourse, and definers of spaces for legitimate contestation.” In bestowing all authority and judgment in the hands of a commission of inquiry, colonial regimes “were also saying that Africa’s forms of knowledge were irrelevant.”45

  The establishment of the Board of Enquiry in the case of the MV Apapa set very clear boundaries for the terrain of the conflict, confining what was being discussed and who was being represented. “The Board of the Enquiry into the Trade Dispute between the Elder Dempster Limited Lines and the Nigerian Union of Seamen,” as the investigation was called, was headed by two Nigerian conservatives: the industrial relations commissioner, Thompson Edogbeji Salubi; and the secretary general of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, L. L. Borha, a declared anticommunist. Also on the board was Alfred McClatchey, the secretary of the Employers Consultative Association.

  Publicly, Elder Dempster supported the investigation, while privately the company was kept abreast of the committee’s work directly by Chairman Salubi. Officials at Elder Dempster attempted to have the report serve as a firm condemnation
of Sidi Khayam and hoped that he would be removed in the aftermath. In an attempt to win favor with the chairman, Elder Dempster officials made inquiries for his son, T. E. A. Salubi Jr., to be accepted to medical school at the University of Liverpool.46 But despite these efforts of the company, the Board of Enquiry was not willing to make any resounding condemnations of the union’s general secretary in their report, which was finally released in 1960. In fact, the report had the opposite effect, with the recommendations actually compelling Elder Dempster to fully recognize Khayam and to cooperate with him in the establishment of formal mechanisms for representing the interests of both the union and management. Khayam was now a full partner in any future negotiations. The union was to be the official channel for representing all seamen, and responsible for recruitment and registration of seamen, as well as for negotiating with management.