For the second time within a week, another shuttle passenger boat reportedly capsised on the Lagos waterways killing innocent travellers.
The boat mishap around the Mile 2 area of Lagos state occurred precisely three days after a similar accident in Ikorodu area of Lagos which claimed the lives of two passengers. The General Manager of the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LSWA), Sarat Braimah gave a vivid account of the accident thus: “At about 7.45 p.m., on July 8, the National Inland Waterways Authority and Lagos State Waterways Authority received a distress call of an incident on the waterways. A W19 passenger Fibre boat carrying 16 people capsized along the Ojo area of the state. The boat going from Mile 2 to Ibeshe in Ojo axis broke the waterways rules of late travelling by setting sail at 7.45 p.m. It is said that all passengers on board, including children, were not all putting on their life jackets.
The search and rescue team of the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), National Inland Waterways (NIWA) were immediately mobilised to the scene of the incident but unfortunately could only find the boat after several hours. Efforts are still ongoing to locate the victims. The boat captain is also unaccounted for as at the time of this press release.”
Clearly, the mishaps were due to violations of government regulations. We cannot fathom why people in the line of private business will be so recalcitrant about rules and regulations guiding their operations. We maintain that lives could have been saved if the passengers had put on life jackets in line with safety requirements for sea transportation in the country.
Also, we find it amazing that despite the flagrant refusal to supply life jackets to passengers, the boat operators would still set sail at night against the rules. The obvious implication of the mishaps is that there was failure of monitoring and enforcement of regulations. We call on relevant agencies of government to step up their games and ensure the protection of the lives of innocent citizens. We would like to reiterate that the rapidity of boat mishaps in Nigeria should be of serious concern to all stakeholders in the transportation and maritime sector as well as government officials. We must put a stop to boat mishaps in Nigeria.