By Tunde Ojudun
The Nigerian inland waterways have become graveyards of broken promises and failed regulation. The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), charged with overseeing water transport safety, has consistently fallen short. Its weak enforcement and regulatory lapses have turned our rivers into death traps.
Despite repeated tragedies, NIWA’s response has been largely symbolic—press statements, token life jacket distributions, and vague promises. The reality on the ground tells a different story: unsafe wooden boats still operate freely, passengers travel without life jackets, and overloading and night journeys continue unchecked.
In just six months of 2024, boat mishaps in Niger, Kogi, Kwara, and Bayelsa States claimed 452 lives. The carnage continued into year 2025 in which lives have so far been lost.
27 lives were lost in May this year when a boat capsized in the Gbajibo community in Kwara State during a storm. Two months later, in July 13 deaths were recorded when a market -bound passenger boat capsized near Gumu village in the Shiroro area of Niger State.
The following month in August, over 50 passengers thrown into the water near Goronyo market in Sokoto State. This September again, a fatal boat mishap was recorded in Niger State, killing many people. The boat carrying an overload of over 100 passengers, struck a submerged tree stump near Gausawa and led to 60 deaths, mostly women and children.
These are not isolated incidents—they are symptoms of a systemic failure. Over 3,000 boat accidents have occurred in the past decade. Yet, NIWA remains reactive, not proactive.
These waterways calamities speak volume of the weak management, regulation and enforcement of inland water transportation in Nigeria.
NIWA has is treating with kid’s glove
the core issues of:
– The need to ban on unsafe wooden boats
– Strict enforcement of life jacket use
– Total stoppage of overloading and night travel
– Replacing weak or non-existent regulatory oversight with strict regulation.
We must ask: how many more lives must be lost before NIWA wakes up? Lip service is no longer acceptable. The time for action is now.
As a matter of urgency I recommend the following steps to be taken without delay:
– Immediate ban on wooden boats
– Strict enforcement of life jacket use
– Zero tolerance for overloading and night travel
– Deployment of trained water marshals, and
– Real-time monitoring and emergency response systems.
The Nigerian government must treat waterway safety as a national emergency. This is one death too many. These deaths are preventable. What’s missing is the political will and institutional accountability.
Let this be the last season of mourning. Let the rivers carry commerce, not corpses.