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By Steve Agbota
The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), on Monday, seized thousand of expired and substandard life jackets from boat operators at the Marina Jetty in Lagos.
The exercise, which was carried out by the Lagos Area office led to seizure of thousand of substandard life jackets destroyed by the enforcement team of the authority.
Reacting to the development, the Lagos Area Manager, NIWA, Engr. Sarat Buraimah, said the exercise was a routine exercise embarked upon by the area office.
She added that life jacket is a life safer especially when there is an accident but when it now old, fake or substandard, then the users are at risk of losing their lives.
Her words: “This is a routine exercise, it’s never starts today. We need to remove all fake and substandard life jackets from circulation. If an item that was suppose to save people during the time of emergency can’t then why do we strap it around our body?
When accident occurs, life jacket is to keep you floating for some hours before help should come but in this aspect, because of the nature of the life jackets, it becomes increasingly impossible to do that, so to save lives, we need to impound them.
“The exercise will be continuous and we will continue catching them unaware until we fully sanitise the system,” she said.
