Following the recent Lagos boat accident that claimed the lives of six school children, Gboyega Alaka, who went on a fact-finding mission to the jetties, sought explanations and solutions.
Last year, the Managing Director of Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), Olayinka Marinho, announced that an estimated three million commuters would be transported monthly through the waterways. This, he said, would bring the annual total to 36 million. It would also be an increase from the previously established figure of 2 million per month. He said the figures have been constantly rising, as many more Lagosians were discovering the quickness, cheapness and safety of water transportation, and promised that the government would continually invest in it to decongest the roads of heavy traffic.
He said the government would continually push out more high capacity ferries to enhance water transportation, even as he acknowledged that over 200 vessels, operated by about 50 operators were already in the business and helping to bring to reality the state government’s plan.
He also said that the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), which he heads, was stepping up its efforts to ensure safety, by enforcing the use of life jackets before any passenger embarks on a voyage.
Many have however queried the purported safeness of the system, citing what they term “regular boat mishaps” in the state waterways.”
One Mishap too many
Last week, the nation again woke up to news of another boat mishap. This time, 6 of the 14 school children on board lost their lives, when a boat said to be driven by an illegal oil bunkerer rammed into their boat, as they negotiated their way to school. The hapless kids were said to have been coming from Irewe Village on the other side of the Ojo waterway and heading for Imude, where their school is located, when the oil thief, that was being chased by a marine police boat, collided with their boat.
Different accounts of events leading to the accident have however been put forward. While some say the boat operator probably looked back one split moment, as his pursuers gave him a hot chase; another version says, he had ear speakers in both ears, which prevented him from hearing the kids yelling for notice that last moment.
A Lagos State Waterways Authority, LASWA official stationed along the area, however tend to agree with the earlier speculation, arguing that it was far into the morning and that the only way he could have missed seeing the kids, was if he was looking back at his pursuers. He argued that ear-pieces don’t cover the eyes and that he would still have seen the children’s boat and averted the collision, as the waterways are always very broad.
Naturally, this last incident has attracted a lot of outrage, with many wondering if indeed the Nigerian and more especially, Lagos waterways are really safe, as is been touted by government officials. The incident was all the more painful considering that the teenagers who died, could all have survived if it was just a case of the boat sinking or capsizing, as nearly all of them were said to be expert swimmers.
However, in a swift reaction, Mr Marinho said at a press conference last week that the accused boat operator has been arrested and detained at the Railway Police Station, even as he added that the children were not wearing life jackets despite the fact that the state government had distributed 3,500 life jackets to boat operators.
But contrary to general opinion, Marinho said the motorised boat that rammed into the children’s boat actually developed a fault midway in the waters and the operator was trying to fix it, while in motion, when the accident happened.
He said LASWA operations in this area is unfortunately hampered by shortage of manpower, even as he promised that the government would now pay more attention to them.
Marinho says the state, as part of its corporate social responsibility, distributed over 3,500 life jackets to riverine communities from Badagry to Epe, stressing that 360 jackets were distributed to the Ojo communities where this accident happened, wondering why people still fail to comply with the simple rule of wearing a jacket before getting on boats.
He admitted that most of the canoes plying the waterways in the riverine communities are not captured in the government’s operations in the state, which informed the reason some of the students were not wearing life jackets.
He however announced that 1,800 children’s life jackets will be made available to the communities in the coming days, while another 2,400 would be distributed to boat operators for general use. To ensure adequate planning, he said a mini-census will soon be conducted amongst the communities to provide ready-made statistics.
The senator representing the constituency, Senator Solomon Adeola, has also promised five hundred life jackets, to be distributed at jetties along riverine areas of the constituency.
While commiserating with parents and relatives of the victims, the senator said “While the unforeseen can sometimes occur in accidents like this, it is our duty to ensure that losses and fatalities are minimised to the barest minimum through precautionary and safety measures that are strictly enforced by regulatory authorities. But this can only take place when safety gadgets like life jackets and helmets are available for people to use and their use strictly enforced.”
Boat operators speak
Samuel is a young boat operator with base at a privately-run jetty near the government’s jetty at Ojo. On this occasion, he was busy handing out life-jackets to passengers, as they got on board his boat. Like in the road commuter buses, one didn’t need to ask where he was headed, as he intermittently shouted out ‘Mile-2, Tin-Can/Coconut.’
He said boats from the jetty go to different destinations, ranging from Irewe and other villages on the other end of the waters, to Mile-2, Tin-Can/Coconut, Liverpool and even CMS. He says the patronage has been steadily on the rise, owing to the Lagos-Badagry Expressway under reconstruction by the Lagos State Government, and that the quest of people for a quicker option to their destinations, is largely responsible for this.
Citing the fact that commuters spend as much as three to four hours in traffic between Iyana-Iba (Ojo) and Mile-2 or even CMS, journeys that shouldn’t ordinarily take more than 30 to 45 minutes, he said they have recently begun to embrace the only other option, which is the water-way. He said the fact that boats hardly take more than 30 minutes or thereabout, with no possibility of hold ups, has also made it more attractive.
Samuel said the fear of water accident or drowning is just what it is, fear; arguing that such accidents rarely happen. “Were it not that the boat (that collided with the children’s boat last week) was being chased, like we’ve heard, and the boat driver was not concentrating on his front view, such collisions rarely happen on our waters. All through last year for instance, we only had two boat accidents, out of thousands of shuttles. Of those two, only one recorded a casualty of one person, a woman, out of ten passengers. I know because I was part of the rescue team. On the other occasion, they all survived, because they were all wearing life-jackets. Now compare that with road transport.”
Explaining further, he said “I think people should understand that this (last week’s incident) was an accident, just like we have it on the roads, and no-one knows when they would happen. And I think that with the precaution of wearing life jackets, lives may not be lost, even when they occur once in a while.”
He explained that the operators at his Ojo jetty have adopted the life jacket as the only other compulsory requirement, aside the fare, for any passenger to get in the boats. Besides, he said the LASWA officials are always on hand during the rush hours, making sure that operators comply with the maximum ten-passenger per boat, and making sure everyone properly wears their life-jackets before getting on board.
The three Musketeers
Abdul Ganiyu, Toyin and Samuel are three other boat operators at the Ojo jetty who eagerly warmed up to this reporter on this fact-finding mission. They no doubt see this interaction as an opportunity to share the problems of their industry, and eagerly answered this reporter’s questions.
First, they debunked any thought that passengers still get on board boats without life jackets. “The LASWA officials regulate our business and ensure that we all comply with the life-jacket and ten passengers per boat criteria. During heavy morning traffic, you will always find them here with us, and we are now so used to it that even when they are not around, like now, we still comply. We are never happy when an accident occurs or when news goes round that people have drowned boarding our boats. It affects our business negatively and this is our only means of livelihood. They also inspect the boats to ensure that they are in good condition.” The trio literally echoed, with one filling in the facts, where the other has left something out.
Regarding safety, Samuel says government should pay attention to sanitation on our waterways, arguing that a lot of people have made it a habit to dump sacks of refuse in the lagoon, including used tyres. “This is more rampant along the waterways in Ajegunle, Apapa areas, where the population is huge and people think the river would just help them sweep the refuse away. But what they forget is that this sacks stay just below the water surface, where they’re not visible to boat operators, but not so deep that boat engines cannot be entangled in them. Often, this can destroy the gearbox, but atimes, the suddenness can cause a boat to capsize. Imagine a boat running into a heavy sack of refuse or tyre suddenly at night!”
Samuel, who leaves in JMJ on Ajegunle water-side therefore wants the government to create a marine wing of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, to regularly clear the waterways of refuse and possibly prosecute people and communities, where this is prevalent.
The three friends also want the government to dredge some parts of the waters, and mark them, so that boat operators would be aware of the safer routes to ply.
Said Samuel, “You may not know, but there are some parts of the river, far away from the shore that are almost as high as the grounds, and if you don’t already know these places by experience, you just could always hit hard soil and find yourself in a terrible situation.
How often do accidents occur?
Asked how often accidents occur on the river, Abdul Ganiyu said “That is rare and far between. In fact, if not that once in a while, these errors just beat all human efforts, I would have told you that water transport is accident-proof. Besides LASWA is leaving no room for any carelessness on the part of the operators as they always insist on strict compliance with rules and regulations, and are quick to sanction us. The unfortunate thing is that because accidents on waters are rare, when they happen, the news always spread wide. The fact that the recent one also involved children has further created a lot of emotions around it.”
Water commuters speak
Just as this conversation was coming to an end, a boat arrived from Irede, another village on the other side of the river. As already hinted, all the passengers had a life jacket on and their number did not exceed the maximum ten. Amongst them was Corporal Francis of the Police Headquarters, Ikeja. He says he plies the route everyday to work, since he would only have to take one more bus to get to Ikeja from Iyana-Iba garage, the main terminus in Ojo town.
He testified to the safeness of the system, saying “I can tell you categorically that these boats hardly have accidents. In fact, I can tell you that boat transport is the safest of all the means of transport.”
Curiously, Francis wasn’t aware that there had been a boat accident in the area recently, although he said that may be because he had only returned from a trip to Abakaliki a day before this conversation.
Another passenger, Rafatu, a fish dealer, said the incident of the recent boat accident is unfortunate, but said such is rare. “Boats don’t capsize here. In fact, except one gets really careless, we don’t ever have accidents here. It is because water accidents are rare that so much noise is made about it. Can you count how many road accidents have occurred, since that boat accident last week?
When reminded that the state can attain a zero level, Rafatu shook her head in negation and said “We are not God, and whoever is destined to die by drowning will never die on the road. That is the way I see it. But as for safety efforts, we are all trying, same for the LASWA officials who accept no excuse, when it comes to wearing life jackets.
LASWA official speaks
One of the LASWA officials on duty at the Lagos State government-owned Ojo Jetty, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a reoccurrence of such accident can only be avoided if patrol and regulatory efforts are stepped up by both the LASWA officials and the marine police. He however says a lot still needs to be done by the commuters in term of compliance with basic safety rules.
“We at the jetty make sure all passengers wear the jackets properly, but you find that the boat would hardly have gone a few metres away from the jetty, when some passengers would be yanking them off – pretty much like the seat belt deception that happens in bus transport. You even find some female passengers, who willingly disobey the instruction, citing excuses that they want to breast-feed their babies.”
On issues of fake jackets, which many feel may also jeopardize their hardwork, this LASWA official says “That may not be true. I am yet to see a fake jacket. I think people would always make wild claims of sort, when unfortunate events like this happen, all in a bid to be relevant. All I know is that if a passenger wears the jackets properly, there is no way they will go down, if a boat capsizes, except of course, if they panic and pass out.”
The only other possibility of fatality with the life jackets on, he said, is “if the boat capsizes with the passengers trapped under. This is because the boat will pin them under, and that is why we always insist that a boat operator must be a very good and strong swimmer, so that in such cases, they would go under and free the passengers.”
On natives of the riverine villages, who still sail with manual wooden boats and who hardly comply with the life jacket because of their dexterity as swimmers, he said, “That will only happen if there are no LASWA officials there.”
Like other respondents spoken to, this LASWA official also thinks that it is impossible to achieve zero level of marine accidents year in year out, arguing that the statistics at the moment is not really bad. “We will continue to step up our game, with government assistance, but you have to realize that even in Europe, where they are far more safety conscious and sophisticated, we still have them recording marine accidents, many of them far worse that what we have ever witnessed here.”
On recalcitrant operators, who flout the regulations despite all efforts, he said one of the ways the LASWA management force them in line is to suspend them from plying the waters. That we do by reporting them to their chairmen, who ensure they comply. But when it becomes a regular thing with a particular operator, we may make official reports to our head-office and have his boat confiscated.
