The victims, according to the state governor’s office, had just left the Patigi district for a wedding ceremony.
According to police and local authorities, more than 100 people have perished in Kwara State after a boat carrying families leaving a wedding capsized in a river.
It was the most recent boat tragedy in Nigeria, where river capsizes are frequent due to overloading, lax safety procedures, and significant flooding during the rainy season. Details about the accident in Kwara were still coming to light.
Local police and the Kwara governor’s office said on Tuesday that the boat was transporting people from a wedding in neighboring Niger State when it capsized. They did not provide a reason for the accident.
Okasanmi Ajayi, a spokesman for the Kwara State police, told AFP over the phone that “so far we have 103 people dead and over 100 people rescued from the boat accident.”
“Search and rescue efforts are still ongoing, so the death toll is probably going to go up.”
The victims, according to the governor’s office for Kwara State, were on their way back from a wedding ceremony in the Patigi district of Kwara.
The statement read, “The governor is saddened to hear reports of the boat accident involving several people, especially residents of Ebu, Dzakan, Kpada, Kuchalu, and Sampi, all in Patigi.”
The governor offers the residents of these communities his sincere condolences.
According to the statement, the governor was keeping an eye on the rescue operations that had been launched on Monday night to look for potential survivors.
He praises the Etsu Patigi’s traditional ruler, His Royal Highness Alhaji Ibrahim Umar Bologi II, and other local government officials for their quick thinking in trying to save as many people as they could who might have survived the accident.
Unfortunately, such river accidents happen frequently in Nigeria.
In northwest Sokoto State last month, 15 children drowned and 25 others went missing when their overloaded boat capsized while they were en route to gather firewood.
Another 29 kids from a nearby village drowned in the same river almost exactly a year prior while going to gather firewood for their families.
In southeast Anambra State, during severe flooding during the rainy season last December, at least 76 people perished when their boat capsized in a swollen river.
In Nigeria, river boat transportation for trade and transportation is common due to poor road infrastructure and kidnapping for ransom as a significant problem along some highways.
The Niger River, which flows through Guinea and into Nigeria’s Niger Delta in a crescent shape, is the main waterway in West Africa and an important trade route for some nations.
Although Nigeria’s National Inland Waterways Authority has attempted to outlaw nighttime river sailing and has made overloading ships a criminal offense, skippers and crews frequently flout the rules.
Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president of Nigeria, expressed sadness over reports of the loss in response to the most recent boat accident.
The fact that the victims were returning from the neighboring Niger State, where they had traveled for a wedding ceremony over the weekend, makes it all the more tragic, Atiku emphasized.
The former vice president said in a brief statement on Tuesday that the deaths should prompt serious thought about the need to upgrade the country’s infrastructure, particularly inland waterways and interstate connections, in order to prevent the unfortunate occurrences that have started to happen more frequently recently.
Even more crucial, he continued, is the requirement to install life jackets appropriate for the number of boat passengers.
Atiku expressed sympathy to the bereaved families, the Kwara State government, and the good people of the state.
