Somali Pirate Returns to Work Following Year-Long Sabbatical

Like anyone, pirates need time off from stressful job too

MOGADISHU — It’s been over a year since any commercial shipping vessels have been attacked by pirates off the coast of the African country of Somalia, but Robert Ogubuwe promises that is about to change. Ogubuwe confirms that his year-long sabbatical from his piracy duties has come to an end, and he’s ready to get back to work.

“After nearly a decade of non-stop terror attacks I was feeling directionless and in need of some me-time,” Ogubuwe says, “I needed to take a step back and reflect on the things that make me happy as a human being, aside from murder and pillaging.”

Ogubuwe says that he initially began questioning his career choices after several friends of his were assassinated following the overtaking of the Maersk Alabama in 2009, in which American forces rescued the captain of the vessel that had been overtaken.

“I was wondering if the work I was doing was really worth it,” he says, “I’ve always been more than willing to risk myself and my crew in order to provide for the warlords who reign over Mogadishu, but I was becoming increasingly more overcome with the feeling that there is more to life than robbery and the occasional rape. This year off has allowed me to discover what some of those things are.”

Ogubuwe says he spent the past year studying world religions and traveling abroad, which he says gave him a deeper understanding of the different cultures of the people who he has killed during his career.

“When you truly stop and consider that each person is a unique individual, it gives greater meaning and significance to every life you extinguish,” says Ogubuwe, “The great irony is, while on sabbatical, I was actually on a pleasure cruise that was taken over by pirates. As I watched the pirate captain struggle to choose which passenger to kill, I knew exactly the turmoil he was dealing with. That realization will, I believe, make me a more effective murderer in the end.”

Ogubuwe says he plans to resume his career this summer. He says he will return to the work he loves with a renewed focus and understanding for what it takes to be a top flight murderer and thief.

“Anyone can kill another person,” he says, “Killing is easy. High school kids do it. What the sabbatical has taught me, hopefully, is how to actually kill while maintaining a sense of my own humanity.”