Ashore, a teenager stood near the harbour ready to anchor the fibre ferry for Jacob Averesi and his six passengers to disembark. It was about 10am on the last Wednesday in July and his second trip between the CMS Jetty on Lagos Island and Liverpool in Apapa – the state’s maritime hub.
But for two years that Averesi has been shuttling CMS-Liverpool and other neighbouring routes, he has no issue with NIWA over his operations even though he was not certified. “I have been driving boats since I was 17 years old without any issue. I started at Ikate Jetty. I used to be on board with my brother. I studied him and he taught me some skills. After some time, I started sailing too.”
He said, “There is a limit to which I can travel in a wooden boat. I go to Ogogoro and Liverpool. I cannot travel long distances like Badagry. This is the only work I do and I learnt it from my brother. Many of us here learnt it through family members. Police spokesperson in the state, Muhammad Sadiq, said the number of passengers travelling on the boat had yet to be ascertained but an eyewitness told theThe council’s Caretaker Chairman, Alhaji Zakari Shinaka, blamed the accident on overloading and urged traditional rulers in the riverine communities to impound any overloaded boat – a responsibility NIWA is saddled with.
“We realised that the high current was pushing the boat near the parked barge around Kirikiri, so we shouted at him to start the engine. All efforts made by him to start the engine were in vain.” “The boat had stopped twice due to a mechanical fault. It later exploded,” a survivor, who identified himself as Layiwola, had told our correspondent.
“I didn’t have a fire extinguisher because a fibre boat like mine doesn’t usually catch fire,” he said confidently before revealing how he learnt the skill. She said, “We have organised training for such boat captains in November last year. We were supposed to do another one in April 2020 but we had to change the date because of the coronavirus pandemic. Because of what has been happening recently, there is a new curriculum to train the captains both formally and informally because most of them are illiterates.
Kamson also identified rivalry between NIWA and LASWA as one of the challenges inhibiting the effectiveness of the water transport system, noting that the clash of interest over control of waterways had been resolved.
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