The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has urged states of the federation to collaborate with the federal ministry of marine and blue economy, through NIWA, to achieve safer inland water transport.

The managing director/chief executive officer of NIWA, Bola Oyebamiji, made the call at a stakeholders meeting on safety and security on inland waterways, on Thursday.

He said that NIWA, according to its Act and the recent judgement of the Supreme Court, had the right to regulate activities on the inland waters and their rights of way.

According to him, this does not foreclose collaboration and cooperation from states and agencies, including security establishments.

“We, therefore, call on states to collaborate with us in the area of training, construction of jetties, route marking and provision of standardised boats and passenger ferries for their people to ease their daily commuting,” he said.

Mr Oyebamiji said that transport on the inland waterways deserved greater attention than road transport.

He said that comparatively, inland waterways had a greater capacity to transport more passengers and goods than other modes of transport at relatively cheaper cost and faster.

He added that NIWA had positioned 350 water marshals to strengthen its presence on inland waters and sensitise boat operators and passengers, across different loading platforms, on safety.

“Also, within the first half of the year, we have trained more than 350 boat operators and drivers.

“We have equally continued to remove impediments from the waters to achieve smooth navigation.

“We have realigned hundreds of our navigational buoys to ensure that channels are marked for captains and boat operators.

“To demonstrate our strong commitment to improved infrastructure facilities across the waterways, with the 2024 Budget, we have started gradual but steady improvement of our jetties facilities, among others, through the implementation of the 2024 Capital Budget,” he said.

He said that deployment of operational assets such as boats, personal safety equipment and personnel, was to safeguard the commuting public on the inland waters.

The NIWA boss said, however, that in spite of what the authority had done and was still doing, there was a need for it to have a strong collaboration across all its operational bases.

Mr Oyebamiji said that to invent new ways of doing business, NIWA had chosen to communicate with people in their local languages within their comfort zones.

He added that NIWA had carried out sensitisation programmes in more than 25 states of Nigeria.

“Within the last 90 days, our officers have appeared on more than 26 radio and television stations across Nigeria to speak about the Transportation Code and the need to promote safety on inland waterways.

“The launch of the Transportation Code and the harvest of numerous projects and assets were deployed to inject efficiency into how we conduct our businesses,” he said.

He said that Thursday’s event was another in the series of other ideas conceived by the minister to push NIWA to achieve more.

“Now, this meeting has brought stakeholders together for a critical appraisal of our challenges with a view to finding solutions to them, and we are indeed grateful for the minister’s leadership,” he said.

(NAN)