LAGOS – Capt. Alex Badeh Jr., the Director-General, Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) revealed that other modes of transportation, apart from the aviation industry were not cooperating with it on accident investigation.
He specifically said that some of the correspondences sent to agencies in other transport modes are not responded to despite the NSIB Act 2022, which empowered the bureau to investigate accidents in other modes of transportation like rail and maritime.
Badeh Jr., stated these in Lagos over the weekend, during the maiden Transport Summit organised by the Transportation Correspondents Association of Nigeria (TCAN) with the theme: ‘Intermodal Transport: Prospects and Challenges.’
According to him, apart from the aviation industry, other modes of transportation in the country treated safety as a secret, stressing that the transport sector required total collaboration to drastically reduce recent accidents.
Badeh who was one of the discussants at the forum stated that safety was paramount in all the modes of transportation.
He said, “Aviation industry is the second most regulated in the world after the medicine. We talk regulations all over the world. The more loss of lives, the heavier regulations you see in the industry except in Nigeria where hundreds of people die in our inland waterways and we pay lip service to that, same with the roads.
“And then we find that here, aside aviation, everyone treats safety as a secret. You approach the other agencies, but they tell you, we are not aviation, why should we collaborate with you? Accident happens, you send letter to the agencies, but they ignore you. We can’t be everywhere as a bureau. Maritime agencies for example, don’t want to cooperate with us.”
The NSIB formerly the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) is an agency of the federal Ministry of Aviation responsible for investigation of accidents in all modes of transportation.
Before the new Act, the then AIB used to investigate only serious incidents and accidents in air transport industry in Nigeria, but with the amendment of the Act, the bureau was empowered to investigate accidents in all modes of transportation.
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This new Act is fashioned after the United States – National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
According to him, aviation is the second most regulated industry in the world after medicine with safety as the number one priority and wanted other modes of transportation to emulate same.
He, however, reiterated the readiness of the safety bureau to replicate the safety enjoyed in the aviation sector to other modes of transportation with the cooperation and support of other agencies involved.
According to him, the NSIB investigation was not to apportion blame, but to ensure the safety of lives of the people.
“As far as we are concerned in NSIB, we want full cooperation of other agencies. NSIB is ready and Nigeria is ready. Accident prevention is not just the responsibility of us, the accident investigators or the regulators, it is the responsibility of the public,” he added.
Also, Dr. Kayode Opeifa, former Commissioner for Transport in Lagos, stated that with the birth of NSIB as a multimodal investigation agency, other agencies could not investigate themselves.
Opeifa, who is the Executive Director of the Centre of Sustainable Mobility and Access Development (CenMAD) said it was wrong to come up with the cause of any accident without proper investigation.
Besides, Mr. Michael Olawumi, the Head of Business Development, Lagos Area Office, speaking on behalf of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), said that the authority had done a lot to curb incessant accidents on the waterways.
He stated that there is still the impression that NSIB was about aviation and promised the readiness of the authority to partner with the bureau to deepen safety on the waterways.
Another discussant at the forum, Group Capt. John Ojikutu, rtd, said, “In every transportation system, you must have safety regulations and somebody must enforce them.”
