…Urges Passengers, Boat Operators To Prioritize Safety On Waterways
By Kenneth Jukpor
The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has admonished waterways passengers and boat operators to prioritize safety as they transit on the nation’s waterways.
The Managing Director of NIWA, Senator Adeleke Olorunnimbe Mamora made this call in Lagos on Monday, while commissioning a refurbished boat Ambulance to aid search and rescue operations of the Authority.
According to the NIWA boss, ownership of safety on waterways is very critical; “It is for passengers, operators and everybody”, even as he urged them not to keep information in terms of what they expect to see as it affects safety of waterways while begging them to spread the good news.
On the boat ambulance commissioned, he said, “we have before us this Boat Ambulance. As a medical practitioner, I know the importance of an ambulance and I have inspected the facilities and equipments inside and I’m pleased that it has all the facilities”
The NIWA boss assured Nigerians that more boat ambulances would be commissioned as the Authority intensifies efforts to curb loss of lives on the waterways.
He noted that accidents do happen speedily and NIWA had be ready so to address these mishaps when they occur, so the commissioning of the boat ambulance was a step in the right direction.
A demonstration of the boat ambulance rescuing stranded individuals was done at the Marina jetty and Mamora expressed satisfaction with the operation.
On recent boat mishaps in the country, the NIWA boss observed that the recent incidents in Lagos, Makurdi and Kwara happened as a result of non-compliance with the inland waterways transportation code.
He said that the Authority had established from those accidents was the urgent need for them to do more of sensitization, more of education and safety awareness campaigns even as he assured that they were putting the logistics in place to ensure that do this all over the country using the zonal structures as they aim for accident free waterways transportation.
He also lamented that overloading has become a major issue leading to boat accidents.
“When a boat is supposed to carry maybe twenty passengers is carrying fifty passengers. Even the manner of sitting in the boat is also important. The sitting of the passengers is supposed to be balanced so that you don’t have excessive weight on one side of the boat which is very important. The issue of wearing of life jackets, it is important and then what we have discovered is that in some of the cases, we have fake life jackets. So, one of the things we are trying to do is to standardize and ensure that the life jackets being used are such that are NIWA certified so that people will not just be using life jackets that will not achieve what it was meant to achieve.
He also pleaded with Nigerians, particularly the passengers and the operators, not to sail in the night and stressed the need to also have manifest to keep record of passengers onboard boats and there basic information.
“Let us know who are on the boat at given point in time from the point of takeoff to destination so that God forbid, when there is anything, you will be able to look at it. But we discover that often times, it is in the aircraft that we seem to pay more attention in this aspect of manifest but we need to even on the waterways so that we can know who is taking off from which end and to which destination.
