By Seun Ibiyemi
The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) says it has begun preliminary investigations to unravel the remote cause of the death of over 103 persons in a boat accident at Egbu village in Patigi Local Government Area of Kwara.
The Director-General of the agency, Mr George Moghalu, disclosed this while speaking with the journalists in Ilorin on Sunday after an on-the-spot assessment visit to the incident scene.
Reports that the deceased reportedly died after the boat conveying them, while returning from a marriage ceremony, capsized in the middle of the river.
Moghalu said he was in the community to find out the cause of the unfortunate accident and put plans in place to stem future re-occurrence.
The NIWA boss, while condoling the community and the entire nation, revealed that the preliminary investigation had shown that the accident happened as a consequence of avoidable human error.
He said from the initial reports, even though investigation is still ongoing, revealed that the vessel that was involved in the accident was on water outside approved stipulated time of operation.
“There is a standard protocol that after 6 p.m, we don’t allow boats to operate on our water ways.
“Because experiences have shown that over 90 to 95 per cent of accident on our water ways happened in the night or very early hours in the morning.
“The reason is very simple, these vessels don’t have night navigation aides, the vessel in question was heavily overloaded.
“There was no reason for the vessel to carry over 250 passangers; and apart from the passangers, there were other luggages.
“Most unfortunately also, all the passangers were not wearing life jackets and it was on a very raining night and the downpour came with wind,” he said.
Moghalu also confirmed that NIWA donated life jackets to the community and pledged to provide more life saving equipment to the community.
He explained that in the course of his discussion with the people, the community made basic requests, including provision of a jetty