NIWA to Phase Out Wooden Boats on Inland Waterways, Says MD

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) at the weekend said that it was moving towards phasing out  wooden boats on inland waterways.

Speaking in Lagos, Managing Director of NIWA, Bola Oyebamiji, during an interactive session with editors, Oyebamiji said the boats also accounted for the majority of accidents on the waterways nationwide.
The interaction, which focused largely on the safety of the waterways and expansion of water travels, had the managing director tell the editors that wooden boats constituted over 90 per cent of boats on the waterways.
He said this was largely because they had no regard for operational rules, which included not travelling at night, overloading and failure to use life jackets by both operators and passengers.

He said: “Travelling at night is a criminal offence. Most of them have no light at all. Overloading is also an issue. And the boats are piloted by people of the lowest education in Nigeria.”
On how to resolve the issue in the short term, Oyebamiji said NIWA had consciously increased the number of its Marshals at jetties from 80 to 350 to cover the entire country.

He said at least two marshals are at jetties per time daily, observing morning and night shifts, revealing that the agency had embarked on a rigorous campaign both at the jetties and via the media.
He said the campaign was being done in both English and the local languages of the communities covered, noting that the campaign focused on enlightening the boat operators and passengers on the ills of night travel, overloading, and not using life jacket, among others.

The Managing Director, however, said the long term goal was to phase out wooden boats from operation.
In this wise, Oyebamiji said the agency was liaising with the Presidency and Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, headed by Adegboyega Oyetola, to replace wooden boats nationwide.
He equally said for now, more patrol boats will be deployed by the agency to monitor operators in line with the NIWA Code, adding that the Nigerian Navy was also assisting in this regard.

He added: “A lot of people bring God into this matter of safety on waterways when we are the problems ourselves. Our characters and our behaviours are the great determinants here.

“We will continue to push by applying education, enlightenment, and sanction, where need be until we have zero fatalities on our waterways. There is so much we would have had to do in this regard while we hope that all stakeholders will start playing by the rules.”