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The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) will soon stop the use of wooden boats in the country. According to the Managing Director of NIWA, Bola Oyebami, wooden boats accounted for 90 per cent of the boats plying our waterways and major cause of accidents reported on waterways nationwide. The NIWA boss disclosed this recently in an interactive session with editors in Lagos. He attributed the boat mishaps largely to disregard of operational rules, which include travelling at night, overloading and not using life jackets by passengers and operators.
“Travelling at night is a criminal offence. Most of them have no light at all. Overloading is also an issue, and the boats are piloted by people of the lowest education in Nigeria,” he stated. Part of the short term measures put in place by NIWA to address the issue include increasing the number of its marshals at jetties from 80 to 350 to cover the entire country. At least, two of these marshals would be deployed at jetties observing morning and night shifts. He also said the agency had embarked on a rigorous campaign both at the jetties and via the media, aimed at enlightening the boat operators and passengers on the ills of night travel, overloading, and not using life jackets, among others. The long term goal, he informed, was to phase out wooden boats from operation totally.
In 2023, over 500 lives were lost to boat mishaps with hundreds declared missing. On October, 2024, a boat mishap at Mundi in Mokwa Local Government of Niger State claimed 200 people. The 100 passenger capacity boat had about 300 passengers on board when the boat capsized. Since 2020, over 1,400 deaths were reported in the in country due to boat accidents.
Therefore, the plan to phase out wooden boats is commendable. It is a long expected intervention. Most wooden boats used in the country are cheap to make and afford, and not constructed by experts. They are built with little regard for safety. The old style boats are generally heavier than fibreglass boats, which make them less efficient on waterways and more difficult to manoeuvre during unfavourable weather conditions, especially by inexperienced boaters. Wooden boats are given to rot and leakage after being exposed to harsh weather conditions for a long while. Thus, the lifespan of a wooden boat is shorter than a fiberglass boat.
However, phasing out the wooden boats without replacing them with modern fibreglass boats and ferries is bound to pose a major problem to inland waterways transportation. There are remote, riverine areas that cannot be easily accessed by roads, which makes the use of boats for transportation inevitable. Constructing long bridges do not come cheap either. Many farmers in coastal parts of the country also rely on boats to visit their farms. This is why liaising with the Federal Government and the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy to replace wooden boats nationwide will serve a useful purpose.
The marine authorities should not concentrate only on commercial wooden boats but all the wooden boats plying the inland waterways. A database should be created to ascertain the exact number of the wooden boats in use. Replacing them all at the same time might be challenging, given the cost of modern fiberglass boats today. If it is possible, modern fiberglass boats should be provided free to local farmers.
Commercial boat operators, who cannot afford brand new fiberglass boats should be offered credit facilities to buy them. Ferry services should be improved and more ferries deployed to jetties across the country. Emphasis should be placed on ferries with bigger capacities to comfortably convey passengers, vehicles and cargoes. Ferries form an essential part of the public transport system of many coastal islands and cities. Also, old pontoons should also be gotten rid of.
It is expected that NIWA should show more seriousness in deploying patrol boats to monitor operations in line with the NIWA code. Safety measures must be enforced by the marshals. The violators of the NIWA code should be sanctioned. It is important that routine training must be provided to boat operators who are not used to modern fibreglass boats. Mishaps arising from unruly storms may not be completely avoided, but they can be limited if relevant weather information is provided to boaters by NIWA as done in the aviation industry. There is an urgent need for sanity on Nigeria’s inland waterways.
