Keeping our waterways safe – Thisday

The authorities should enforce safety standards
The Association of Tourist Boat Operators and Water Transporters of Nigeria said recently that it has identified some possible tragedy-prone spots on Lagos waterways. According to Mr Ganiyu Balogun, president of the association, the spots have been marked. “We have demarcated about 30 spots with danger floating sign; we implore the government to clear the wrecks to forestall mishaps. We are calling on the government to remove all debris in order to keep the waterways safe without delay,” he said.
We agree with Balogun that wrecks and logs on waterways constitute a major source of hazards and we ask the relevant authorities to take the warning seriously. “The major causes of accident on our waterways are wreck and logs on waterways; government through its agencies should as a matter of urgency remove the wrecks,” said Balogun who added that the Nigerian Maritime Association and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had told the association to help identify the areas and promised to work on them.
The rising number of deaths on the nation’s waterways should indeed be a serious cause for concern to the authorities. So frequent are these accidents that in the last one year alone, hundreds of lives have been lost. While critical stakeholders have had to cry out on the need to address the situation, nothing seems to have been done in that direction. That is why we urge NIMASA to be alive to its responsibilities not only by clearing our waterways of wrecks and debris but also helping to instill safety standards.
It is noteworthy that the Lagos State government recently came up with some safety standards, including making it mandatory that all operators of water transport in the state to have a life-jacket for each passenger on board. Unfortunately, in most other states, especially in the riverine areas, not much attention has been paid to the issue of safety of those who travel by water. We urge the authorities concerned in those states as well as the federal government to take the issue of safety on our waterways more seriously.
The issue of wrecks on the waterways has for decades been a safety concern but authorities seem not to be paying much attention to it. While boat accidents are inevitable in the creeks and coastlines especially given the fact that the people living in those areas have no alternative means of transportation, it is the responsibility of NIMASA to make our waterways safe for navigation, especially in places without other reliable transportation system, and where people tend to pile into whatever watercraft happens to be moving towards the direction they are going.
There are of course other safety concerns. It is, for instance, a notorious fact that there is hardly any ferry, canoe or the so-called “flying boat” that keeps to the exact passenger number specification. Besides overloading, another cause of these marine accidents is the fact that most of the boats are old and suffer from lack of proper maintenance. Perhaps more important is the obvious absence of enforcement of safety standards. Consequently when the canoe encounters stormy conditions along the water, the sheer weight of the human cargo and other luggage would make it easily susceptible to capsizing.
There is no doubt that water transportation could be one clear source of decongesting the roads in places where road travel could result in spending frustrating hours in traffic. That is why we call for the enforcement of safety measures that would go a long way in minimising the number of deaths on the nation’s waterways. And it will begin with clearing the debris.