News
Ways to Ensure Waterways Safety in Nigeria Inland Waterways
- A PAPER PRESENTED BY CHIEF RAYMOND GOLD, CO-FOUNDER AND CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABLE WATERWAYS AWARENESS, ADVANCEMENT AND ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION IN A STAKEHOLDERS FORUM HELD AT APAPA ON MONDAY THE 10TH OF MARCH 2025, TO SUGGEST IDEAS FOR THE SPECIAL MINISTERIAL COMMITTEE ON BOAT MISHAPS IN NIGERIA, SET UP BY THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF MARINE AND BLUE ECONOMY, ABUJA.
INTRODUCTION:
In recent times, there has been an increase in the volumes of persons and goods being moved by water across our country Nigeria. One reason behind this increase is the pitiable state of some of our roads. Bad roads increase travel time.
To save time, citizens are gradually embracing water transport as an alternative for both interstates and intrastate travels. Again, within some states, many communities (waterfront communities) are accessible only by water. In such situations the citizens have no other options of travel other than through water.
This increase in water transport patronage, has come with its own challenges including safety challenges. Water transport comes with its own value chain. It include transport, leisure, (tourism) and Fishing (agriculture). Thus any attention paid to fix the challenges of our country’s waterways (including safety challenges), would have a ripple effect on its entire value chain.
The challenges of our waterways include safety, security, poor infrastructure, environmental challenges and more. All these challenges are intertwined and a holistic approach is the best in tackling them.
LOSS OF LIVES AND PROPERTY THROUGH BOAT MISHAPS:
A report published by the Leadership Newspaper sometime in November 2024, put the number of deaths as a result of various boat mishaps on our inland waterways between the year 2000 and 2024, at 1,428. The report also revealed that although, the northern part of our country has low water levels, it recorded the highest volume of casualties.
In the last quarter of 2024, over 200 lives were lost in boat mishaps on the waterways of Kwara and Niger States alone.
As a result of this, SWAAADO worked with WABOTAN, an association of boat owners and drivers, to look into the causes of the boat mishaps. Causative factors as revealed in this collaborative work, include, use of sub-standard boats to travel, poor boat maintenance, night sailing, none use of safety vests (life jackets) and the lack of safety awareness by the the drivers.
For example, findings reveal that out of over 200 passengers involved in the boat mishap that happened on the night of October 1, 2024 in Gbajibo Community, Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State, over half of the passengers were without life jackets. That boat mishap claimed over a hundred lives.
CAUSES OF BOAT MISHAPS ON OUR INLAND WATERWAYS:
Causes of boat mishaps can be grouped into three, namely: Natural factors, Human factors and
Technical factors.
1. Natural Factors:
These include, strong waves and currents, wrecks and other stumps
on the causeway, piles of sand and silt building up mainly due to indiscriminate
dredging along the waterways that could grind a boat to a sudden halt and cause an
accident, Very bad weather that could affect visibility, and many others. In some
environments, big animals that live in water ( such as crocodiles, alligators, whales,
sharks, hippopotamus, etc, ) could also cause an accident
2. Human Factors:
Human factors includes overloading, night sailing without the necessary navigational equipment on the boats, reckless driving by the boat drivers, nonuse of life jackets or wrong use of same, lack of training and subsequently lack of safety awareness on the part of the captains and the crew, driving with faulty engines, etc. for example, in the accident that happened sometime in August 2024 in Bayelsa state, the engine was running out of fuel and the driver tried to put fuel into the engine without putting off the engine first.
This recklessness on the part of the driver led to a fire outbreak and an explosion that resulted in very severe injuries and loss of lives. Some training in basic safety on the part of the boat driver would have stopped such recklessness.
3. Technical Factors: Technical factors include substandard boats and engines, sudden
failure of engines midway into the journey, inadequate or outright nonexistence of
navigational aids, etc
SUGGESTED WAYS TO REDUCE BOAT MISHAPS ON OUR WATERWAYS:
We suggest the following ways to reduce the incidence of boat mishaps on our waterways.
1. Training and retraining including public sensitization amongst operators and other
stakeholders to build capacity towards safety: Training and retraining of drivers and
their deckhands on basic knowledge of waterways safety such as the type that
SWAAADO does regularly in Lagos in collaboration with WABOTAN, an association of
stakeholders in the water transport sectors.
The curriculum for this training include…rules of the road, basic firefighting techniques, basic first aid procedures such as administering CPR, how to embark and disembark, how to adorn the life jackets properly, etc. SWAAADO in collaboration with WABOTAN, has done this training
consistently in the past seven years.
Many of the operators in the water transport sector (especially out inland waterways) are very informal persons who couldn’t have gone to our maritime academy. This kind of training and workshops would equipped them with the basic knowledge they need to ensure safety in the cause of plying their trade and thus reduce boat mishaps on our waterways.
It also sensitizes the public to appreciate and embrace the use of safety vests such as the life jacket.
2. Regulations and Enforcement:
The regulatory agencies, NIMASA for our coastal waterways and NIWA for our inland waterways should be strengthened to enable them enforce safety regulations on our waterways. Boat drivers should be licensed according to the capacity of the boats they drive….. PDSC certification from NIMASA and the National Boat Drivers’ License from NIWA. Every boat on our waterways should be registered and licensed just as it happens with vehicles on our roads.
Agencies should also sit up to fine/punish offenders to serve as deterrent to others. Such efforts towards regulation and enforcement should be carried out in an inclusive manner involving stakeholders. Both the agencies and stakeholders can co-create a safety culture for our waterways that would in turn reduce boat mishaps and reduce the loss of lives and property that come with such accidents.
3. Government investment in Water Transport Infrastructures and Safety Vests:
The water transport sector is a very huge part of our country’s economy. It is part of a
value chain that boost tourism,(Nautical/Water Tourism) and Agriculture (fishing).
Any investment in this sector is worth it. Governments, both at the federal and state
levels, should invest in this sector through the provision of standard boats for
commercial use, providing standard jetties, etc. Standard life jackets are not cheap.
Some citizens may not be able to afford personal life jackets. Both states and the
federal government should make life jackets available at the jetties where citizens
board boats to travel.
4. MDAs to complement NIWA’s Efforts on our Inland Waterways: State government
should also set up agencies or departments within their various transport ministries
to work with NIWA to ensure safety on the waterways within their states. The job of
ensuring safety on our waterways is enormous and shouldn’t be left to NIWA alone.
Thank you.
Chief Raymond Gold
Tel: 09032140048
Co-founder and Co-Executive Director, SWAAADO
FIVE DEAD, 41 MISSING AS FIRE GUTS INDONESIAN FERRY CARRYING 271
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
At least five people are dead and 41 others remain missing after a passenger ferry caught fire off Indonesia’s Madura Island on Sunday, triggering a major multi-agency search and rescue operation involving naval and civilian vessels.
The Mutiara Sentosa 2, sailing the roughly 40-hour Surabaya to Makassar route with 271 people on board, including 232 passengers and 39 crew members, caught fire between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time in waters off Sumenep regency, Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency said. The vessel was also reportedly carrying 181 vehicles, mostly trucks, and an excavator.
About an hour after the blaze started, ferry operator PT Atosim Lampung Pelayaran alerted the Surabaya Search and Rescue Office, after the vessel’s captain radioed a distress report saying the ship was ablaze near the northern tip of Madura Island. Contact with the vessel was then lost.
By 9:45 a.m., rescuers had pinpointed the ferry’s location, roughly 19 nautical miles north of Buruan Sapudi Island, after reaching the nearby cargo ship Meratus Project 3. That vessel, however, could not approach the burning ferry closely because it was carrying a flammable load. A tugboat and another passing vessel became the first responders, beginning evacuations shortly before 10 a.m., before more ships joined the operation.
By Sunday afternoon, several nearby vessels had rescued 225 passengers and crew and recovered five bodies, with 41 people still unaccounted for. Basarnas dispatched a rescue vessel from Surabaya, though officials estimated a six-hour transit time to the scene, and a rigid inflatable boat sent from the Sumenep rescue post was forced to turn back due to rough seas and high waves. An Indonesian naval warship has since joined the search.
The cause of the fire has not been established and remains under investigation. It is the second major Indonesian maritime distress incident in as many months. Last month, rescuers searched for survivors after the KM Nurul Salsa suffered engine failure and sank, with five survivors, including a seven-year-old girl, recovered days later.
NIGERIA WATCH
Indonesia’s tragedy off Madura should sound familiar to anyone tracking Nigeria’s own inland and coastal waterways. Strip away the geography and the pattern is the same one that recurs on the Niger, the Benue and the Niger Delta creeks every rainy season. Overloaded or ill-equipped vessels, delayed distress reporting, and rescue assets that arrive too late or cannot reach the casualty at all.
The detail that should trouble Nigerian regulators most is the nearby cargo ship that could not assist the burning ferry because it was itself carrying flammable cargo. This is a reminder that firefighting capability, not just headcount, is the real test of vessel safety. NIMASA and NIWA have made real strides on the Seafarer Discharge Book digitization and the CVFF portal, but neither agency has articulated a clear standard for onboard fire-suppression systems on domestic ferries, particularly those plying the country’s inland waterways that operators like WABOTAN and ATBOWATON know well.
There is also a lesson for NIWA and LASWA in the response timeline. Indonesian rescuers, despite dispatching a navy warship and multiple agency assets, still needed roughly six hours to reach the vessel, and one rescue boat had to turn back in rough seas. Nigeria’s own record on Benue and Niger Delta boat accidents shows the same gap between a distress call and an effective response, a gap that NIWA’s enforcement push and the LASWA-Interferry Ferry Safety Development Programme are meant to close, but which will keep costing lives until vessel-side fire and lifesaving equipment compliance is treated with the same urgency as overloading and life-jacket enforcement.
Editor's Choice
RUSSIA’S ARCTIC OIL GAMBLE: WHAT AN ICEBREAKER FLEET TEACHES A REGION THAT STILL FIGHTS PIRATES WITH GUNBOATS
RUSSIA’S ARCTIC OIL GAMBLE: WHAT AN ICEBREAKER FLEET TEACHES A REGION THAT STILL FIGHTS PIRATES WITH GUNBOATS
By Oghenewoke Osaweren | Waterways News
Russia has just done something no country bordering the Gulf of Guinea could attempt: it built an entire alternative shipping corridor, armed it with nuclear icebreakers, and is now using it to route around the world’s most contested waters. For West African maritime observers, the story is not really about oil. It is about what state capacity buys a country when global shipping lanes turn hostile and what its absence costs one.
A CONVOY BUILT TO DODGE THE WORLD’S HOTSPOTS
More than a dozen Suezmax, Aframax and Medium Range tankers are currently transiting or staged along Russia’s Northern Sea Route, carrying crude that analysts estimate at roughly 8 million barrels, already more than half the total volume Russia moved during the entirety of last year’s four-month Arctic navigation season. The largest cluster has formed in the Kara Sea, where the Suezmax Dinasty and five Aframax tankers are holding position, likely awaiting nuclear icebreaker escort or better ice conditions before pushing east toward Asian buyers.
Independent tracking data corroborates the scale of the buildup. Vessel-tracking figures show at least seven tankers involved in Russia’s eastbound Arctic crude campaign, with five Aframax tankers and another vessel holding position while one tanker had already begun its eastbound transit, together capable of carrying roughly 5 million barrels of crude. Russia shipped 4.16 million barrels a day of crude in the four weeks to July 26, with tankers beginning to use the Northern Sea Route to China as Arctic ice retreats, part of a broader pattern of Russian crude sidestepping Red Sea risk.
THREE NUCLEAR ICEBREAKERS, ONE STRATEGIC CALCULATION
Moscow has deployed three nuclear-powered icebreakers, Sibir, Yakutiya and Ural, along the route this season, with Ural stationed near Wrangel Island, a choke point that has slowed convoys for two consecutive summers. The route shaves thousands of nautical miles off the journey between northwest Russia and Asia compared with the Suez Canal, but it is navigable to conventional tankers only for a few summer months, and even then only with heavy icebreaker support.
Russia is leaning on that seasonal window precisely because its conventional options have narrowed. The push helps Moscow sustain historically high export rates while avoiding the pitfalls of sailing through Houthi-threatened Red Sea waters, on top of continuing tension around the Strait of Hormuz and Ukraine’s demonstrated reach against Russian energy infrastructure and tankers.
It is worth noting, however, that the Arctic route has not been Russia’s unqualified success story. An analysis published earlier this year found that cargo volumes on the Northern Sea Route actually fell for the first time since 2022, dropping to 37 million tons in 2025 against an official target of 80 million tons, a reminder that ambition and icebreakers alone do not guarantee results, even for a state willing to spend billions building Arctic infrastructure.
THE GULF OF GUINEA COMPARISON NO ONE IS MAKING
Here is the part of the story West African readers should sit with. Russia’s answer to shipping-lane insecurity was to engineer an entirely new corridor, pouring state capital into a fleet of nuclear icebreakers so that geography itself becomes a strategic asset. Nigeria and its Gulf of Guinea neighbours face a comparable insecurity problem, but with none of that infrastructure to fall back on.
Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has fallen from its mid-2010s peak, credited in part to Nigeria’s Deep Blue Project, NIMASA’s expanded intelligence and patrol capacity, and coordination among regional navies. Yet the region accounted for 92 percent of all crew kidnappings recorded globally in 2025, with 23 seafarers taken hostage, up from 12 the year before, and analysts still point to limited naval patrols and porous coastal borders as unresolved weaknesses.
Nigeria has responded this year by deepening security partnerships, including a new naval cooperation arrangement with the United Arab Emirates covering intelligence sharing, technology transfer and indigenous shipbuilding, while regional navies have moved to activate a Combined Maritime Task Force for the Gulf of Guinea.
Those are real steps. But they remain fundamentally reactive, protecting an existing corridor rather than building an alternative one. Russia’s Arctic convoy shows what the other end of that spectrum looks like, a state treating maritime routing itself as a lever of economic survival, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars and a fleet of icebreakers most nations could never justify.
THE TAKEAWAY FOR NIGERIAN MARITIME POLICY
The lesson is not that Nigeria should chase Arctic-scale infrastructure as geography and economics make that irrelevant here. The lesson is narrower and more urgent. Global shipping is entering an era where major exporters are actively re-routing around instability rather than simply insuring against it. If the Gulf of Guinea’s own security gaps persist while global shippers have more alternative corridors than ever to choose from, the region risks losing traffic not because vessels were attacked, but because they were rerouted before they ever arrived.
For a corridor that already competes with Russian, Gulf and North African crude for the same Asian buyers, that is not an abstract risk. It is a market-share question with a naval-capacity answer.
Blue Economy
NIMASA Deepens Seafarer Welfare Push, Signs Off Renewed Mission to Seafarers Collaboration
NIMASA Deepens Seafarer Welfare Push, Signs Off Renewed Mission to Seafarers Collaboration
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has restated its commitment to improving the welfare of Nigerian seafarers, pledging deeper collaboration with the Mission to Seafarers (MtS) as part of ongoing reforms in the sector.
The commitment came as the Director-General, Dr Dayo Mobereola, received a delegation from the Mission to Seafarers at the agency’s Lagos headquarters, led by the Chairman of MtS Lagos, Chief Adebayo Sarumi, alongside the Regional Director for Africa, Reverend Cedric Rautenbach.
Speaking on behalf of the DG, NIMASA’s Executive Director for Operations, Engr. Fatai Taiye Adeyemi, said the agency would continue tightening certification processes, expanding capacity development programmes, and strengthening welfare policies for seafarers both at sea and in port, in partnership with stakeholders such as the Mission to Seafarers.
Chief Sarumi commended NIMASA’s ongoing reforms and expressed confidence that closer collaboration would translate into tangible welfare gains for Nigerian maritime professionals. Reverend Rautenbach, for his part, clarified that while the Mission to Seafarers and Nigeria’s Port Welfare Committees pursue a shared objective which is the the wellbeing of seafarers. The two bodies operate on distinct, complementary mandates, making coordination between them essential to strengthening on-ground support at Nigerian ports.
The meeting covered decent working conditions, welfare service gaps, and areas of mutual collaboration. NIMASA said the engagement aligns with its obligations under the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006, and forms part of a broader push toward stronger regulatory oversight and stakeholder engagement on seafarer rights.
Nigeria Watch
Beyond the courtesy-visit optics, this meeting lands on a fault line that has dogged Nigerian seafarer welfare for years: fragmented institutional responsibility. NIMASA regulates and certifies; Port Welfare Committees are meant to deliver frontline services at berths; the Mission to Seafarers, a faith-based international NGO, fills gaps neither statutory body always reaches. These gaps are chaplaincy, shore leave support, emergency assistance, and advocacy for stranded or abandoned crew.
Rautenbach’s point about “distinct but complementary mandates” is worth pressing on, because in practice that distinction has often meant duplication in some areas and total absence in others.
Nigerian seafarers have long reported patchy access to welfare facilities at ports like Apapa, Tin Can Island, and Onne. Such reports include inconsistent internet access, poor rest facilities, and slow response to cases of wage default or abandonment by errant shipowners, issues MWUN has repeatedly raised in past CBA compliance disputes.
NIMASA’s MLC 2006 framing is the right one, but enforcement, not policy language, remains the industry’s persistent complaint. If this renewed MtS partnership is to mean more than another photo-op at headquarters, it should translate into a documented, port-by-port welfare service map: which ports have functioning seafarer centres, which Port Welfare Committees are actually active, and where the Mission to Seafarers’ Flying Angel network is present versus where seafarers are effectively on their own.
Nigerian crews calling at their own national ports deserve better than welfare support that depends on which NGO happens to be in town.
Oil and Gas5 months agoTantita’s Pipeline Deal: $144m Contract, Rising Output, and the Questions that Deserve Answers
- MARITIME TRADE & SHIPPING5 months ago
World’s Largest Container Ship Sets New Maritime Record with 22,233 TEUs on Single Voyage
- Blue Economy6 months ago
Nigeria’s Coast Guard Bill: A Solution in Search of a Problem?
