YET ANOTHER BOAT TRAGEDY
The authorities should do well to enforce safety standards
Last Monday, a wooden boat carrying about 90 passengers capsized after colliding with a tree stump in the Gausawa Community in Borgu Local government Area of Niger State, killing dozens of victims. Overloading has been cited as a possible cause of the mishap. Women and children were among the victims. The tragedy has again triggered calls for stricter enforcement of safety rules on the waterways. Similar accidents have been recorded in Mokwa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kwara, Anambra, Lagos, and other states in recent months. “Overloading must be discouraged, capacities strictly adhered to, and the provision of life jackets made compulsory,” said former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. “The cost of safety is far cheaper than the cost of lives cut short in preventable tragedies.”
Sadly, there is hardly any ferry, canoe or the so-called ‘flying boat’ that keeps to the exact passenger number specification. In many instances, boats are loaded with passengers more than their capacity, especially at peak periods when people are in a hurry to get back to their places of abode. Consequently, when the canoes encounter stormy conditions or objects along the waters, the sheer weight of the human cargo and other luggage make them easily susceptible to capsize.
Aside from overloading, most of these boats are old, and suffer from lack of proper maintenance. Perhaps more important is the obvious lack of safety standards. In fact, not much is known about the existence of any mandatory operational guidelines for ownership of ferries and boats and the minimum standards that must be met to be in the business of ferrying people across the waters. The ones in place are hardly enforced.
Established in 1997, NIWA is saddled with the task of managing the nation’s 3000 navigable waterways from the Nigeria/Niger Republic and Nigeria/Cameroon borders to the Atlantic Ocean. These comprise Rivers Niger and Benue as well as the creeks, lagoons, lakes, and intra-coastal waters. NIWA’s mandate also includes providing regulatory and operational leadership in the nation’s inland waterways system and “develop infrastructural facilities for efficient intermodal transportation system that is safe, seamless and affordable”. But the agency has been reduced to counting dead bodies after these serial tragedies.
It is unfortunate that almost everything that should be easily achieved always looks like a mountain in Nigeria. With the existence of waterfronts in various parts of the country and the increasingly devastating state of our roads, innovative leaders would have ordinarily explored the options of water transportation by heavily investing in our waterways with a view to making them safe. Sadly, that is not the case.
Going forward, we reiterate our call that operational standards be enforced nationally for those in the business of water transportation. Provision of emergency services along the waterways is also worth considering.
It is understandable that boat accidents are inevitable in the creeks and coastlines, especially given the fact that the people living in those areas have no alternative means of transportation. And perhaps because of that, they tend to pile into whatever watercraft available. But as we have reiterated several times on this page, authorities in the sector must put in place the necessary safety measures. It is evident that the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy’s Adegboyega Oyetola “Special Committee on the Prevention of Boat Mishaps in Nigeria,” set up last February, is still asleep. Even so, travelling by water should not be a suicide mission.
