Nigeria is set to take a giant leap in reducing incessant boat mishaps on the country’s inland waterways as the federal government has embarked on talks with the Spanish government on how to assist the country with its inland waters transportation codes monitoring technology, Managing Director of Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) disclosed at the weekend in Lagos.
Mr. Bola Oyebamiji explained that the deployment of the infrastructure form parts of the authority’s plans to curb accidents and nefarious activities of boat operators on Nigeria waters in its long term plans especially after the launch of the codes recently.
Speaking with journalists at a media parley, the NIWA MD also disclosed plans by the agency to engage local manufacturers of modern boats as it is considering phasing out the use of wooden boats on Nigerian waterways.
Speaking, Mr. Oyebamiji said the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr. Adegboyega Oyeola engaged his Spanish counterpart during a recent encounter in the European country on how to deploy the technology it used in it waters on the Nigerian waterways.
He said “I came back from Spain recently. What we saw in Spain is that they don’t deploy human being to monitor the transportation codes compliances, they have technologies. Whatever happens on their waterways is being monitored and when they have issues there will be an alarm in the control room.
The rescue team will arrest the boat operators and the drivers. So we are talking to the Spanish government, we had meeting with the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy is working seriously with the Spanish Minister of Marine, Blue and Black economy to assist in deploying that technology infrastructure in our own inland waterways.”
Highlighting some of the progress made and measures taken to curb issues of accidents in the waters, the NIWA boss said it enforcement activities for the adherence of the transportation codes is being heightened and will be strictly adhere to.
According to him, “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.”
“Our experience in Gbajigbo, Niger State, spurred us to engage the Transportation Commissioners across the 24 states with navigable waterways. We had a meeting in Abuja and 23 out of the 24 commissioners were in attendance,”