Kasim Sumaina in Abuja
The National Inland Waterways (NIWA) said it has set up 13 rescue stations among its 24 offices nationwide to mitigate boat mishap incidents on the country’s waterways.
NIWA, made the disclosure in Abuja, during the signing of a two-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMet) on provisions of navigational facilities.
The Managing Director, NIWA, George Moghalu, who said this while speaking with journalists shortly after signing the agreement said: “To improve navigation for us in all our waterways, we have the information to work with. If we have information with regards to weather conditions, we can advise our boat operators not to put their vessel on the water at a particular time based on the prediction from NiMet.
“It hurts us to see accident on the waterways. In many instances, some of the incidences are avoidable but they happen most time due to human error. They overload vessels despite knowing the capacity of the vessel, refusal to use life jackets, operating at the wrong hour which is operating after 6pm especially for vessels that don’t have night navigational aids.
“Sometimes, being who we are, we try to stretch our luck. We were confronted with a situation where we gave life jackets to some people, but they say they don’t need it because they are fishes and they can swim very well but I tell them that even fishes die in water.”
According to Moghalu, “When we have information, we will be guided in our actions. We are conscious of the fact that information is powerful and that is why we feel the relationship we have started will improve the efficiency of both agencies and serve the interest of Nigerians.
“We already know flooding will happen, but we need to take measures like opening up the drainage and managing of refuse. We also need to dredge the channels to open them so that the water can find comfortable routes to move around.”
Similarly, the Director General of NiMet, Prof. Mansur Matazu, while speaking on the importance of the partnership, said there was need for close monitoring of activities on the waterways to prevent loss of lives and livelihood.
He added: “We have a very busy navigational activities and this is confronted with lots of extreme events that have led to loss of lives and livelihood in Kwara State. It is time for this partnership. We have eight marine weather stations being manned 24/7 and we recently established central marine forecast office in Lagos and we will have another central office under this partnership.
“Most of the floods event in the country, either flash floods or riverine bank overflow and we don’t have to blame other countries for its operations because we have seen that the waters have been generated within this country and that shows that we need to monitor on real time basis what happens within the water and I am sure the relationship will benefit beyond the water resources because we will come up with lots of environmental monitoring mechanisms early warning that we can support other sectors of the economy.
“Warning is important but compliance to the warnings is the most important and this agreement is subjected to two years and after that, we look forward to modalities for renewal,” Matazu said.
