“The government has directed that the barricades be removed within seven days due to the regrettable massive loss that the state has experienced.”
According to the Taraba State Government, the bodies of at least twenty people who perished in a recent boat accident have been found.
Saviour Noku, the state’s commissioner for special duties and social development, made this revelation soon after he and the deputy governor of the state visited the Binneri hamlet, where the boat overturned last Saturday.
Following an immediate evaluation and expressing sympathy to the impacted communities and families, the state deputy governor, Aminu Alkali, prohibited nighttime travel on waterways in an interview.
When the Deputy Governor arrived, he was informed that the main reason for the accident was fishermen’s attempts to trap fish by building barricades on the rivers.
Within seven days, he ordered all obstacles on the canals to be removed.
He said that moving without passenger manifests and life jackets, or overloading boats or canoes, would be unacceptable to the state administration going forward.
He is adamant that the government conduct a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the boat accident and prosecute those responsible.
“We are here to ensure three main things: that overloading stops, that no more night travel occurs, and that passengers on canoes or boats manifest so that we can easily identify family members in the event of an emergency,” he stated.
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Since not everyone can swim, they should also make sure that each passenger has a life jacket for protection. The administration has ordered that the barricades be taken down within seven days due to the terrible loss that the state has experienced.
On the water’s surface, a few of the drowned passengers are slowly floating and disintegrating.
According to the investigation, the boat was overcrowded with more than 100 people, including children, sacks of cement, building irons, food and animals. But it capsized when it struck a wooden barricade on the canals, which prevented it from moving as intended.
According to a community member who requested anonymity, the number rises on a regular basis, but the leaders of the community conceal it by not disclosing the precise amount in order to avoid being investigated by the state government for overloading.
The boat’s rider reported that two hours after takeoff, they came to a roadblock and tried every manoeuvre they could think of, but to no avail. In the process, the boat began to fill with water.
He disclosed that perhaps fifty to sixty of the people on his boat perished in the water, but those who managed to cling to other passengers who could swim managed to reach the shore of the river.
Two hours after takeoff, we were stocked on the sea because of some barriers that the fisherman had built. He claimed, “I did everything I could to manoeuvre, but I was unable to do so, which resulted in the terrible occurrence.
“Some of the passengers were able to swim out, but between 50 and 60 of them drowned.”
A middle-aged businessman named Suleiman Audu lost both his sister and her unborn child in the collision.
He said that he was at the riverbank when the boat left Mayoreniyo and that he received a call five hours later to find out that his sister and infant had not yet reached their destination.
“I quickly called my friends and we went in search of the boat, only to be informed where people gathered that they could not survive it,” the guy stated. “When I was called to be informed that my sister and she had not arrived at their destination, I knew there was trouble.”
Although this is not the first instance, locals say they are grateful that the state government is paying them a visit to express their sympathies.
To prevent such mishaps, they do, however, want the fisherman to completely remove the obstacles.
