The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has cautioned boat users on the nation’s waterways to be safety conscious whenever they are on water as that is the first and most important step in curbing incessant boat mishaps on the waters.
The Lagos Area Manager of NIWA, Engr. Sarat Braimah who made this call in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos on Wednesday urged boat users not to panic in the event of any emergency on water but stay calm and follow the instructions of the boat captain.
According to Braimah, whenever there is emergency, “the first thing is don’t panic, if you are on water and there is emergency, stay calm because if there is panic, you might not know what to do especially when you are in this open boats.”
She added that “if you stay and did not unbalance the boat, if you are wearing the right jacket, even if you are on water, you will float until rescue comes.”
The Area Manager recalled that in the case of the mishap that happened at Kirikiri recently, the boat capsized because people stood up in panic when the engine stopped working even as she noted that “the captain has already called for evacuation and when the boat came, all of them stood up at the same time and that tilted the boat” adding that that was why the casualties rate was so much because they ran under a barge thereby making it difficult to save lives.
“They were careless on the part of the captains; some were due to panic on the part of the boat users. That is why we want to do a safety campaign, we want to take a week, maybe this month or next month so that we can go round and do a safety campaign, tell the water users what they are supposed to do in case of an emergency”, she further stated.
On effort by NIWA to stem the tide of boat mishaps on the waterways, she noted that the Authority had set up a new Search and Rescue Team as well as Safety Campaign Team to curb the incessant mishaps on the waterways informing that he groups were divided in three zones.
“We have the one that will cover from Apapa to Badagry, we have the one that will cover from Ebute-Ero to Ikorodu and the one that will cover from VI to Epe on 24 hours daily patrol. This is to curb undisciplined captains that we have driving boats on our waterways. We want to curb their excesses because most of them lack the necessary training that is needed to drive boats on our inland waterways. The Managing Director, National Inland Waterways Authority, Dr. Moghalu has just approved for us to train captains from September. We collating their names and companies so that we can start the training immediately”, she added.
Engr. Braimah further disclosed that the Authority was partnering with a life jacket company that has imported new life jackets, standardized and approved by the National Inland Waterways Authority even as she insisted that “this is what people are going to be used henceforth on our waterways because we found out that from the recent boat mishaps, some are avoidable ones.”
“Going forward, we should see safer waterways because we are trying to do a massive training that has never happened before. We want to use different languages to train these captains because some of them are not literate. So, we have seen that what we need is practical training, tell them what they are supposed to tell people in case of emergency, communicate. At every jetty now, we want to put safety officer that will talk about safety before you board a boat, tell you what you should do because sometimes, accidents are inevitable. The only thing we pray for is not to lose life.
“So, when the accident happens, there are emergency number which we have on leaflets, they will call these numbers, these people live in NIWA, they live in the office on schedule. Some people stay here permanently in case of emergency. So, when these numbers are called, they can always get in there and render assistance.
“So, I am using this medium to tell Nigerians to be safety conscious.”
Send your news, press releases/articles to augustinenwadinamuo@yahoo.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @ptreporters and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526, 08053908817.
