That the Nigerian road networks are overwhelmed and overstretched is not an overstatement.
It is a known fact that as citizens, we have fewer travelling options outside of the roads in the country, either, due to astronomical cost in air travels, comatose state of the railways or safety concerns on the waterways.
The Lagos state government particularly is making efforts to shore up the confidence of the travelling public on the safety of its waterways to relatively convey people living in littoral communities and others close to their destinations away from the hustle and bustle on the roads and it has being a while since we have reports of a boat accident on its waterways as the cases were before.
This is however not the case with our national inland waterways. As at Friday 20 more bodies was recovered as victims’ from the ill fatedboat conveying about 300 passengers from Kwara State to an event in neighbouring Niger State when it capsised at Gbajibo in MokwaLGA of Niger State.
Twenty more bodies of passengers of the capsised boat were recovered on Thursday as community members recalled harrowing experiences of the disaster.
The recovery by local divers and officials of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA) and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) took the number of recovered bodies to 36, according to the state agency.
The Director-General of NSEMA, AbdullahiBaba-Arah, said 16 bodies, comprising two females and 14 males, had earlier been recovered a day after the accident on Wednesday and buried in the Biger State side of the Gbajibo community.
He said 20 more bodies were recovered on Thursday by local divers working with the officials of NSEMA and NEMA, bringing the total number of deaths to 36.
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Mr Baba-Arah said the search and rescue operation was continuing.
An indigene, Mahmud Gbajibo, who spoke with journalists Thursday night, said the incident was emotionally devastating for the community.
This is the sad narrative often associated with traveling on Nigerian inland waterways, triggering the need for overhauling of this mode of transportation going forward.
It was reported on April 7, that a boat, marked Lalek Marine, carrying 20 passengers, heading to Yauri, Kebbi State from Bussa in Niger capsized.
The boat capsized at near Dantoro village not too far away from Yauri town and 20 passengers were presumed on board.
NIWA search party, local boat operators, Marine Police and the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) convened search and eleven passengers were rescued alive with one person in critical condition.
The report stated that there were four fatalities while four were missing.
On June 6 this year, about 28 persons lost their lives when a canoe conveying them across River Benue capsized in Benue State. The victims were travelling from Ijaha in Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State to participate in the annual convention of their church.
The Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority on July 29, 2023, said a boat mishap occurred at Kirikiri, Apapa as a result of a mechanical fault in the engine of a Passenger Boat (Mount Zion) conveying 20 Passengers and two crew members. Four persons were rescued while 15 dead bodies were recovered from the water. However, rescue reports were ongoing for one more person, the report noted.
The statement from NIWA signed by Area Manager, Lagos Area Office, Sarat Braimah said, engine malfunction made the boat driver lose control of the steering to a very strong current that capsized the boat under a Ramp Barge.
Boat mishaps are more endemic than ever before in Nigeria due to increased patronage of water transportation.
This preference heralded a new era of immense pressure on boat operators and other water users and increased boat accidents cum fatalities.
Data from Nigeria Watch showed that 1607 lives were lost in 180 boat accidents between June 2006 and May, 2015. Some of the causes of boat accidents are human including; overloading, careless driving, mechanical faults, negligence, turbulent weather, wreckages, piracy, and militancy.
With 8,600 km of inland waterways and extensive coastline of about 852 kilometers, Nigeria boasts of the second longest waterways in Africa.
The Niger River and the Benue River, the two longest rivers in Nigeria, run into each other at Lokoja and dissect the country into east, west, and north sections.
These rivers and several others have been utilised for water transportation.
As such, ocean, coastal water and inland water transports are regarded as three main components of water transportation in Nigeria.
Statistics from National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) show that 22 out of 36 states in Nigeria also use water as a means of transport and over 296 Nigerians were lost as a result of boat mishaps in the year 2020.
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This statistics proves that water transportation has come to occupy a strategic place in the economy of the nation especially with the intricacies of road transportation.
For several years, the problems associated with boat accidents have been under emphasised.
Water transportation in Nigeria has suffered severe infrastructural and human capacity neglect, a situation that propelled boat mishaps and increased fatality rate all over the country.
Agencies such as NIWA saddled with the responsibility of managing the water ways have been underfunded and mismanaged.
Equipment deployed to monitor such water ways are obsolete and staff are unequipped with the requisite skills to man the facilities.
As a result of the inefficiency in management and personnel, many people in their productive years have been lost to boat mishaps and many goods lost in recent times.
While the precarious nature of water transportation in Nigeria is not restricted to managerial inefficiency and manpower ineptitude, the ignorance of boat riders and passengers in safety measures has proven to be worse.
Boat riders rely on their over-rated knowledge of the water channels to convey passengers and goods to different destinations without adequate training and certification in safety measures and navigational techniques.
Boats are overloaded with goods and passengers, a situation that compounds incidents of boat mishap. The passengers on the other hand fail to heed to safety measures and mostly prefer not to use live jackets during journeys.
Against the background of recent fatal boat mishaps on the country’s inland waterways, former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, has said that the agency would get tough with untrained and uncertified boat skippers, who often ignore safety procedures and endanger the lives of passengers.
He advocated the development of cohesive safety enforcement guidelines and regulations for implementation across the littoral states.
He said the harmonisation of standards and procedures for safety in the territorial waters would go a long way in minimising unsafe practices by operators of non-conventional vessels, which are not subject to international standards, but rely mainly on national regulations.
He said: “We have a number of boat skippers that are not trained, and not knowledgeable enough, and they do not have certification. They only know how to manoeuvre the boat and risk people’s lives”.
The Lagos State Waterways Authority, LASWA, in its efforts to ensure safety of its waterways also issued a seven days’ notice to all barge operators in and around the Mile 2 Ferry Terminal to desist from the illegal obstruction of ferry route and to report to LASWA office to resolve the matter.
Mr Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, the General Manager of LASWA, said, “The ongoing illegal barge operations on both sides of Mile 2 water channels are not only affecting the physical structure of the Mile 2 Bridge and its basement but, also pose a serious threat to the safety of lives on the inland waterways.
“This is so because their trucking activities have narrowed the water channel making it almost impossible for the passage of ferries”.
Also in February, the state government commenced the clean-up of its waterways in order to improve water transportation and ease travelling experience on the waterways.
The event which took place at LASWA headquarters Falomo, Ikoyi, Lagos had in attendance stakeholders in the water transportation sector of the economy.
Mr. Oluwaseun Osiyemi, the Commissioner for Transportation, stated that the campaign became necessary to proffer lasting solutions to the sources of the multifaceted litters on the waterways so as to improve the water transport system.
He noted that efficient traffic management and transportation occupies significant positions in the developmental pillars of the present administration as highlighted in the T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda of the State Governor premised on a multimodal transport system that would meet the transportation needs of an emerging smart city.
The Governor through the commissioner, reiterated his administration’s stance on improving transportation, stating that “This Administration has continued to invest in water transportation in our determination to unlock traffic gridlocks often experienced in the metropolis, ease commuters movement, promote the growth of commerce and economic activities, save travel time and reduce traffic induced stress to a barest minimum for a healthy living”.
He noted with displeasure that Lagos State with all its endowed aquatic resources is greatly affected by environmental degradation, stating that this calls for serious concerns and concerted efforts from government and stakeholders in reversing the ugly trends.
Some of the activities littering the waterways according to the Governor are rooted in inappropriate solid waste disposal/management practices amongst others.
“It is in revelation of the dangers inherent in the continued degradation /littering of our waterways with its attendant effects on safety, aquatic animals, smooth Marine operations and many more that that Lagos State Government saw the need to embark on this massive Clean-Up campaign as a way of sensitising all the relevant stakeholders along the coast line to stop further any form of pollution, waste disposal or other forms of abuses on our Waterways”.
Mr Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, the General Manager of LASWA, in his address stated that the clean-up campaign programme became necessary so as to create regular awareness and educate the public especially those living in coastal communities as well as business owners along shorelines on the need to ensure that the waterways are not turned to dumpsites.
Militancy and piracy have also been identified as causes of boat mishaps in the country.
The incessant attacks on barges, fishing boats and passenger boats have resulted in an immeasurable loss of manpower and capital. Often times, when fishing boats are attacked, their operators are kidnapped and ransoms are paid for their release.
Passenger boats are sometimes attacked and the occupants either killed or robbed. While the battle to grapple with boat accidents rages, the dearth of data on boat fatalities and poor mapping of incidents of boat mishaps have remained more worrisome.
