The NIWA MD/CEO, Bola Oyebamiji making his speech at the parley.
Story by Dili Utomi.
The need to reach out to critical stakeholders and the general public through the media in other that more enlightenment can be created about safety and security issues may have formed the basis for the media parley organised on Friday by the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA).
The meeting held at the main hall of the Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Ikeja Lagos with NIWA managing director/chief executive officer, Bola Oyebamiji, his Lagos area manager, Eng. Sarat Braimah and other high ranking officers of the agency in attendance.
The NIWA MD/CEO used the opportunity to highlight some of the acheivements of his agency over the past one year and also harped on the need to improve on safety and security within the over 10,000km of inland waterways which has over 3,000km of it all being navigable.
While making his presentation, Mr. Oyebamiji said “Within one year, NIWA through the supervisory effort of the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy under the leadership of His Excellency, Dr. Gboyega Oyetola, CON, has a new Water Transportation Code, 2023. Within the same period, we have deployed several operational assets including 15 boats of varying capacities and uses to promote efficiency and service delivery.”.
“Similarly, we have provided greater incentives to our workers through the official commissioning of several capital projects to promote a better working environment. Not only this, we have continued to treat the welfare of our workers as a priority always”.
He however noted that “Despite the aforementioned, there is a sore point that has always put NIWA in a bad light. The twin issues of safety and insecurity on the inland waterways always overshadow every gain recorded by NIWA whenever it happens. To confront this headlong, we have reconsidered our safety campaign approach to focus more on the grassroots using community resources”.
A group photograph with the MD CEO of NIWA after the event.
Reeling out more of the agency’s acheivements, Mr. Oyebamiji added that “Within one year, NIWA has carried out more grassroots safety campaign than at any other time within the same period. Also, we have deployed water marshals across different loading and offloading points in the country. It may interest you to know that within three months of its launch, we have increased the number of our water marshals from 80 to 350 personnel. Recently, these officers were directed to commence 24-hour surveillance within selected locations to arrest the ugly incident of night travel and overloading”.
His words “Ladies and gentlemen, just yesterday in Abuja, we gathered the critical stakeholders in a meeting for several hours to evaluate the current challenges on inland waterways transportation and find possible solutions. 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”.
He urged the journalists present to increase the level of awareness and campaign within the sector as opinion shapers, to partner with NIWA, in its mission to promote safer waterways through media advocacy.
Mr. Oyebamiji noted the importance of the engagement of the media in this aspect to them as he said “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”.
The session was rather interactive and a whole lot of issues regarding the scopes of operation, coping with natural phenomena and drawing from wider global experiences were discussed.
The NIWA MD/CEO reiterated the need to apply the new Water Transportation Codes in order to help curb the incidents of accidents while also noting that better capacity has to be built.
He informed that “A recent visit to Spain revealed that a lot of activities within their waterways are monitored with the aid of technology and we are in the process of having a cooperation agreement with the Spanish Ministry of Marine, Blue and Black Economy on how to deploy these in the monitoring of our waterways too”.
Mr. Oyebamiji said that boat drivers in the country need to be trained to be more professional in all conducts and practices so as to improve the quality of services rendered and reduce accidents on our waterways
He praised NIWA’s collaborative efforts with the Nigerian Navy while also stating that NIWA has the capacity to survey the Nigerian waterways as they continue to procure navigational aids for operational purposes.
The issue of what constitutes most of the causes of accidents especially in the Northern parts of the country was raised and one of the directors at NIWA volunteered that apart from human error, most boat accidents occur during the raining season and this is because high volumes of rainfall cause high tides which consequently cause river overflowing into areas hitherto covered by vegetation with tree stumps thereby causing boats to capsize when they hit these stumps or trees.
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