Students Drowned On Their Way To School

There is need to enforce safety standards in marine transportation

It was yet another tragedy in Lagos last week when a 14-passenger boat capsized in Irewe, Ojo Local Government Area of the state, killing six pupils who were on their way to school.

“This particular incident has reinforced the need to use the defaulters as scapegoat. By doing this we will have sent a strong message to the operators at the waterways,” said the Lagos State House of

Assembly Majority Leader, Hon. Sina Agunbiade. We agree with him that the tragic death of the innocent school children has necessitated the need to take decisive steps towards putting a stop to such sad occurrences.


While we commiserate with the families of the deceased children, we urge the Lagos authorities to conduct a proper inquiry, especially in light of reports that life-jackets were not provided for such young people who were embarking on a risky journey across the lagoon.

 But the investigation should be comprehensive enough to include the role of other critical stakeholders in marine transportation and the way forward in what has become a common occurrence on the waterways.

As we have repeatedly highlighted, the rising number of deaths occasioned by boat mishaps on the nation’s waterways should indeed be a serious cause for concern to the authorities. While critical stakeholders in the Master Mariners Association of Nigeria (MMAN) have had to cry out on the need to address the situation, nothing seems to have been done in that direction as the harvest of deaths keeps mounting.

It is noteworthy that following the Ikorodu boat mishap which claimed several lives last year, the Lagos State government established a fact-finding committee to determine the immediate and remote causes of the accident and come up with recommendations to prevent a recurrence. Although the report is yet to be made public, the Lagos State government recently came up with some safety standards, including making it mandatory that all operators of water transport in the state to have a life-jacket for each passenger on board.

It is understandable that these boat accidents are sometimes inevitable in the creeks and coastlines especially given the fact that the people living in those areas have no alternative means of transportation.

 But because of the absence of other reliable transportation system, people tend to pile into whatever watercraft happens to be moving towards their destination. This exactly explains the reason for the incessant boat accidents given that most of the time very small wooden canoes carry passengers far beyond their capacity.

Aside overloading, another cause of these marine accidents is the fact that most of the boats are old and suffer from lack of proper maintenance.

 Perhaps more important is that safety standards are hardly enforced. In fact not much is known about the existence of any mandatory operational guidelines for ownership of ferries and boats and the minimum standards that must be met to be in the business of ferrying people through the waters.

There is no doubt that water transportation could be one clear source of decongesting the roads in places where road travel could result in spending frustrating hours in traffic. But there should be a regular inspection of these boats just like motor vehicles are inspected for road worthiness in order to detect dilapidated and rickety ones which constitute serious hazards. Provision of emergency services along the waterways is also worthy of consideration.

 All these and other safety measures would definitely go a long way in minimising the number of deaths on the nation’s waterways.

THISDAY