To deal with the issues of safety and insecurity on the Inland waterways, the officers of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) have been directed to commence 24-hour surveillance within selected locations to arrest the recurring incident of night travel and overloading.
The Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer of NIWA, Bola Oyebamiji who gave the directive made this known while delivering his speech at a Conference with maritime journalists on 25th October, 2024.
He disclosed that NIWA has has initiated a safety campaign to focus more on the grassroots using community resources focus.
“NIWA has carried out more grassroots safety campaign than at any other time within one year and water marshals across different loading and offloading points in the country have been deployed .”
Oyebamiji announced that within three months of its launch, the Authority has increased the number of its water marshals from 80 to 350 personnel.
He recalled that on 24th October, 2024, critical stakeholders were engaged in a meeting for several hours to evaluate the current challenges on inland waterways transportation and find possible solutions.
According to him,” The meeting which had in attendance the Honourable Commissioners of Transportation from more than 24 states, among other groups, highlighted several important measures that must be taken to arrest the twin issues of safety and insecurity on the inland waterways and of note is the need to increase the level of awareness and campaign within the sector.”
The NIWA MD urged opinion shapersin the society to partner with NIWA, in its mission to promote safer waterways through media advocacy.
“This is important to us because, of all the causes of accidents on our waterways, human error takes the lead. A further evaluation reveals that poor attitude and blatant disregard for safety protocol account for the greatest cause of boat mishaps. We therefore call on you to join us in educating our people on the need to be safety conscious always.”
Bola Oyebamiji informed that within one year of his appointment as NIWA MD/CEO, through the supervisory effort of the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy under the leadership of Gboyega Oyetola, NIWA has a new Water Transportation Code, 2023.
He disclosed that within the same period, NIWA has deployed several operational assets including 15 boats of varying capacities that are used to promote efficiency and service delivery.
He added that greater incentives have been provided for workers of the Authority through the official commissioning of several capital projects to promote a better working environment as the welfare of the workers have always been treated as a priority .
