Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for an investigation following the recent spate of deadly boat accidents in the country.
The latest incident occurred Tuesday when a boat carrying about 300 people capsized in Niger state.
Those aboard the wooden boat were returning from an Islamic celebration in the village of Mundi. Authorities said 160 people were rescued but scores remained missing and were feared dead.
In a statement Thursday, Tinubu expressed condolences to the families of the victims. He then ordered the National Inland Waterways Authority to launch an investigation into the boat accidents across the country.
Tinubu ordered better surveillance operations on waterways and the prosecution of boat operators who violate a ban on nighttime travel.
Critics said the statement did not address the poor law enforcement around the waterways and the fact that passengers were not wearing life jackets.
Salihu Garba, head of relief and rehabilitation at the Niger state emergency agency, said the boat was old and overloaded.
"We're still searching for more bodies and we have opened [a] record book where anybody who has a relative missing should come and register, so that at the end of the whole exercise we'll be able to know how many missing people we have," Garba said. "There's a bill before the State House of Assembly to ensure that laws are made to enforce penalties for those that go against laid-down rules in these waterways."
Kallistus Okon, a Niger state resident, said the main problem was "bad governance. Governance is the first issue I can pinpoint in that tragic incident. There are supposed to be regulatory bodies that checkmate all these things. Did they provide life jackets for those people? If government had made all these things available, then we could say it's the citizens' fault.”
Boat accidents in Nigeria increase during the rainy season when the rivers run higher and faster.
In June 2023, more than 100 boat passengers were killed when their vessel overturned in Kwara state.
