Following the boat mishap that claimed 106 lives in the Patigi area of Kwara State last week, the Managing Director of the National Inland Waterways Authority, NIWA, Dr George Moghalu, stated that the agency’s investigations revealed that overloading and windy rain were among the major causes of the tragedy.
He said the boat lacked navigational aid as it travelled dead in the night.
Moghalu, who disclosed this to reporters on Saturday night in Ilorin, the state capital, shortly after visiting the affected communities and bereaved families, cautioned boat operators and owners to restrict their movement to between 6 am and 6 pm, urging them to avoid night navigation.
He added that his team would visit the scene of the accident this week to carry out an environmental impact assessment, EIA.
He said: “Once the EIA is done, the authority will make available facilities for the communities.
Preliminary investigations have shown that the accident was avoidable if specific protocols were followed.
“Experience has shown that over 95 per cent of accidents that happen on our waterways occur either in the night or very early hours of the morning and the reason is that the vessel could not apply navigational aid.
“Secondly, the vessel in question was very heavily overloaded. The vessel carried over 250 passengers. It was practically impossible for the vessel to operate safely without having a hitch.
‘’Apart from passengers, we had leakages in the vessel. Most unfortunately, all the passengers not wearing lifejackets and it was a very rainy night.
‘’The rain came with wind. Apart from increasing the water level, the wind was tossing the boat here and there and eventually smashed it on a tree.”
He expressed President Bola Tinubu’s shock, concern and sadness over the incident.
Speaking further, he said: “The president himself was very worried. Most of you have seen his reaction where in he had gone to the extent of public investigation so that we can know exactly what happened to prevent such a ugly situation in future.
“In the course of our discussion, the communities requested lifejackets and I instantly made 100 available to them.
‘’I assured them that a team from our authority would be moving to the communities from Tuesday this week to carry our EIA. We want to urge boat operators not to operate their vessels once is 6pm. They are free to use their vessels between the hours of 6am and 6pm of the day.’’
He said NIWA had been embarking on aggressive training and retraining of boat owners and operators for effective standardization of travels on inland waterways in the country.