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An Associate Member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, Mr. Adakole Ejegbudu, who published the booklet, Catamarans To The Rescue in 2017, has raised the alarm over the many needless boat mishaps on the Nigeria Inland Waterways that have claimed many lives. In this interview with SOLA SHITTU in Abuja, Ejegbudu says the recent boat mishap that claimed the life of a celebrity, Junior Pope, and four others is a wakeup call for the authorities to enforce regulations as contained in the NIWA act. Except:

What is your take on the management of inland waterways in the country?

Recently, a celebrity died in a boat mishap, and many Nigerians expressed shock that people were aboard boats without wearing life jackets. This showed that they do not know what happens on our water­ways. Currently, only a tiny fraction of boat operators provide life jackets. The celebrity that died, Junior Pope, died along with four other persons. Similar incidents have been occur­ring, but it only became a national issue because of his status. Nigeria is a maritime country blessed with 10,000km of inland waterways, out of which 4,000km are navigable. This length of waterways is equiv­alent to 28% of the total length of federal highways. If we only con­sider the currently navigable wa­terways, it amounts to 12% of our highways. However, we have paid more attention to the highways, with billions of Naira allocated every year to highway maintenance through FERMA and for new highways, but we have not given similar attention to the inland waterways. There is a disconnect and neglect. People don’t know the state of the inland water­ways, so we have been blind to that. According to the records of the Inter­national Centre for Investigative Re­porting, 17 persons die every month on the Nigerian inland waterways. There are other factors to look at, but the main cause is the nature of the boats themselves.

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What are the causes of boat mishaps?

Boats behave similarly to aero­planes, as both air and water are fluids. However, designing a boat is trickier than designing an aeroplane because a boat has to move through both water and air. This makes it a water-air interface, which requires serious engineering computations and analysis to ensure stability. Un­fortunately, many boats on our wa­terways are not regulated and do not follow the correct protocol for design, construction, and operation. The Na­tional Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has the statutory responsi­bility to survey and approve every design before it is built and to license every boat and captain before they operate on the waterways. Howev­er, the majority of boats on the wa­terways are unregulated, which is a major issue. Overloading is often mentioned as a problem, but with­out boat data sheets to tell us their designed payload, it is impossible to establish a baseline. Therefore, we need to go back to first principles and recognize the importance of following correct protocol for boat design, construction, and operation to prevent boat mishaps and ensure safety on our waterways.

What are we expecting the government to do on this issue?

The NIWA Act mandates that every vessel must undergo a survey process, covering design, construc­tion, and operation. NIWA must approve every design. The Develop­ment Control in Abuja provides a good parallel to this situation. Before constructing a house, you must sub­mit your design to Development Con­trol for vetting of the architectural, electrical, structural, and mechani­cal designs. They will approve your design before you start construction, and they will be involved in the en­tire process. They will check and approve your setting-out work, foun­dation, suspended slabs, and every step of the process. The NIWA ACT captures the same process, requiring all boats to undergo design approval and construction monitoring and ap­proval from NIWA. Even operators must be licensed. However, these pro­cesses are not always followed. NIWA lacks the necessary manpower for this work, and they argue that they do not have the financial resources to cover the entire country. However, it starts with the manpower, and NIWA does not even have a single Naval architect. Naval Architects are the people with the necessary skill set to design vessels and evaluate designs.

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So, NIWA has the laws in place, how does it enforce them?

To ensure the safety of power boats on waterways, it is important to establish standards and codes that can be applied to evaluate the stabil­ity of every design. A key factor in evaluating stability is wind heel, which refers to the degree to which a boat will heel when exposed to wind. Wind should not cause the boat to heel beyond one-fourth to half of the freeboard, which is the verti­cal distance between the waterline and the sheer of the boat. Similarly, passenger heel, which occurs when passengers move to one side of the boat, should not exceed one-fourth to half of the freeboard. Most boats lack reserve stability and are sus­ceptible to capsizing when there is a disturbance and passengers move to one side. This is due to the extreme ratio of beam (width) to length of waterline (1:10) in many boats on waterways, whereas the normal ratio for a monohull boat is 1:2.5 to 1:5. Therefore, to develop the capacity for safe power boating on waterways, organizations such as NIWA need to establish a baseline of standards and codes that can be applied consistent­ly to every design. The boat needs to be stabilized beyond a certain point, and there are several ways to do this. However, boat and canoe builders, as well as NIWA, lack the necessary knowledge. The result is that many boats on our waterways are unsafe, leading to frequent boat mishaps. The boats tend to be too long com­pared to their beam, making them unstable and prone to capsizing even with the slightest disturbance. For instance, the recent mishap involv­ing Nigerian celebrity Junior Pope was caused by the boat hitting the stern of another canoe. After the impact, the boat capsized and could not right itself due to poor reserve stability. A more stable boat would have easily righted itself or could have capsized but still be easily right­ed with a little force. Unfortunately, across the country, we find that most boats lack sufficient beam for initial stability and freeboard for reserve/ ultimate stability. This is a stability issue that must be addressed.

Now that NIWA is not meeting up, what should be done?

I have learned not to be too criti­cal of government agencies because, overall, engagement with them is necessary to solve problems. How­ever, I think it’s time for them to call for a stakeholder conference so that people with knowledge and exper­tise can contribute. On our end, we will not wait for the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) any longer. We have waited for them for too long, so we want to establish a training platform to teach existing boat builders the right way to build. We will design and make available some designs for free. Mr. Eric Ho­lohan, who was my instructor at Naval Architecture School, has started a school – Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology – with a focus on Africa and Asia. He has made me the representative for Africa, and we are starting a school that will train people in modern boat building and design. We want to establish a cen­tre in Calabar, and we will launch it within the next three months. So, in our way, through private sector endeavours, we will start creating a cadre of designers and boat builders. If the government, through NIWA, wants to interface, we are open to that.

What about river ports? The dredging of the Niger, is it a mirage?

I am aware that they were devel­oping a port at Lokoja but I am un­sure about the current stage of the development. As for the dredging of the River Niger, it is a capital-inten­sive project. However, I believe that we should not focus solely on dredg­ing because we already have naviga­ble waterways. Instead, we should prioritize making water transport safe for people who use it. We need to ensure that the waterways are safe before we talk about expanding their utilization. Therefore, let us focus on getting better boats and skilled manpower on our waterways and empowering NIWA to carry out its regulatory responsibilities. Once we have achieved this, we can then focus on dredging the waterways.

What other benefits can the government derive from active waterways transport, that we are not benefiting from now?

The high cost of food in the coun­try is primarily due to the cost of logistics. Food is expensive mainly because logistics is not effective. Wa­ter transport is the cheapest means of transportation because it allows for moving a large tonnage at a low cost. If we make our waterways busy, functional, and effective, it will re­duce the cost of logistics, haulage, and transportation, resulting in benefits that will spread across the board. When we look at the USA, we see how inland waterways transpor­tation was central to the cotton econ­omy that helped the country develop. Similarly, China is an industrial pow­erhouse today, and its inland waters have played a crucial role in making that happen. While people often talk about cheap labor in China, the cost of goods coming out of China is still low because of logistics, which is tied to inland waterways. By shipping goods across the country via inland waterways before taking them to the ship for transoceanic voyages, they keep their logistics costs down. The government can transform the economy by transforming inland water transportation, generating significant revenue and employ­ment opportunities in the process. In addition, we are talking about human lives since, according to the International Center for Investiga­tive Reporting, we lose an average of 17 people per month due to avoidable causes. This is a significant loss of life, and the government must prior­itize the safety of lives and property. In conclusion, making our inland waterways functional with prop­er boats can reduce logistics costs, transform the economy, generate revenue, provide employment op­portunities, and most importantly, protect human lives. Unfortunately, people are losing their lives on our Inland Water Ways, and it’s becom­ing a steady occurrence, especially between June and November when there’s a higher volume of water. Unfortunately, these deaths don’t usually make it to the media because they occur in the backwaters of the country. However, a recent incident involving Nollywood actor and ce­lebrity Junior Pope has brought at­tention to this issue, and people are now outraged. This outrage should have been felt for years because these deaths have been happening for at least the last 20 years, as we have the data to prove it. It’s not too late to take action and make water trans­port safer for users. We’re committed to working with the government or going it alone in conjunction with host communities and Civil Society Organizations to stop these avoid­able mishaps.