The erstwhile Managing Director, Nigerian Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) Asiwaju Bola Oyebamiji has revealed that he never heard of the Federal Government parasatal until his appointment as its helmsman.
Oyebamiji who is presently the governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State also revealed that he met NIWA in a comatose state where the employees were not only ill-motivated but also hungry and angry.
As if these ills plaguing the government agency which has its headquarters in the Kogi State capital, Lokoja were not enough, the former NIWA chief executive officer (CEO) also disclosed that boats mishaps were the order of the day across the country.
He further disclosed that in a determined efforts to reduce boat mishaps on the Nigeria’s waterways, the Federal government has purchased modern boats and ferries that would be distributed to the riverine areas of the country.
The gesture is meant to replace the wooden and dilapidated boats and ferries that have been the major causes of mishaps on the Nigeria’s waterways.
He added that these acquired boats and ferries will arrive the country in the next few months.
Oyebamiji made these disclosures while speaking to maritime journalists in his campaign office situated at Ilerioluwa House, Oshogbo, Osun State recently.
His words: “When I came into NIWA, I have never heard of NIWA in my life before I came into NIWA. When I came in, I looked at what is happening in NIWA. I looked at its profile. I saw that, one, it was an agency that you can say that is moribund. They are not known as NPA and NIMASA. And one thing that is synonymous to NIWA then was boat mishaps”.
According to him, after analyzing the problems of the agency through Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis method, he went to the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy who gave his support and encouragement to do whatever he could to turn things around. The first thing I did was to invest in the human elements in the agency through motivation of staff to lift their dampen spirit.
He revealed that after his intervention, the same staff who were there when NIWA was moribund and boat mishaps were the order of the day also worked very hard to achieve a drastic turnaround of the agency through programmes and projects that eventually led to the reduction of mishaps on the nation’s waterways.
Oyebamiji was full of praise for the media who supported him in his campaign to reduce carnage on Nigeria’s waterways.
Maritime Bits checks revealed that the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Alhaji Adegboyega Oyetola has consistently emphasized the need for riverine areas to discard the use of wooden and dilapidated boats just as he enjoined state governments in these areas to invest in modern water crafts in order to minimize accidents on the waterways.
Giving an insight into how the Federal Government placed the order for the procurement of the modern river crafts, Oyebamiji disclosed that the purchase was in response to his recommendations he made to Oyetola while he was the helmsman of NIWA.
He disclosed that when these modern boats and ferries are delivered, they will be distributed to the riverine states that are much exposed and affected by mishaps due to the use of wooden and dilapidated water crafts.
These include Niger, Kogi, Benue, Kwara, and Kebbi States which have been bedeviled with the menace of boat mishap for long.
According to him, Lagos, Rivers and Cross Rivers States may not be beneficiaries of the modern river crafts procured by the Federal Government because they have over the years demonstrated the capacity to invest in such modern boats and ferries.
Continuing, he said: “I presented a memo to the Federal government through my Honourable Minister and the Federal government paid about 14.6 billion to import very good, very big boats that can actually take agricultural products and people that are domesticated through our waters.
“I’m not talking of Lagos. This is due to the fact that Lagos has enough and it is capable of investing in ferries and boats that can give us a mileage. Rivers State can also do that. The same with Cross River. But our focus is on states that lacked the capacity to do so such as Niger, Kogi, Benue, Kwara, and Kebbi States. I’m sure in the next few months, those boats and ferries will be delivered, and that will go a long way to reduce the boat mishaps drastically.”
He noted that wooden and dilapidated boats and ferries account for about 20 to 25 percent of mishaps in the riverine areas while human elements account for about 70 percent.
