By Steve Nwosu
If you ever choked on drinking water or had saliva, or some liquid block your windpipe, then you can begin to imagine what drowning feels like.
Having not died before, myself, I might not be in a position to tell which form of death is more gentle on the dying, but something tells me drowning, like incineration, must be one of the most painful ways to die. And that is why I develop goosebumps every time I see a crowded raft on the waterways. In fact, until successive Lagos State governments put their feet down to sanitise the waterways in Lagos, I could never get myself to look to my right every time I drove along the Outer Marina. I didn’t want to catch any glimpse of those death-wish passengers perching precariously on the outboards of the dinghies on the lagoon. They gave me the same chills as their kindred spirits on the roof of the trains from Agege to Oshodi, down to Ebute Metta. There has to be a better way to die! Haba! Ọbẹ o daa l’orun fa!
Yes, as a Bacita Boy, from rural Kwara, I’m not ashamed to confess that I grew up on a generous dose of the comedies of Baba Sala, Baba Mero, Jaguar, Papalolo and Sir Jacob.
And it was from one of those Baba Sala episodes (I find it derogatory to call them skits), where the father of comedy was contemplating a suitable type of suicide, that I first heard the expression: ọbẹ o daa l’orun.
For those who don’t speak Latin, I’ll offer the translation offered to me by Mr. Ogunṣọla, my revered primary school teacher and earliest mentor (pardon the accent [aami] I put under his name. For that was how we were taught to properly write his name). Mr Ogunṣọla told me it means ‘the knife and the throat aren’t the best of friends’.
Even with the benefit of exposure and post-graduate education, I’m not in a hurry to change what Mr. Ogunṣọla taught me!
But just as the throat is a no-play area for the knife, underwater is also a no-play area for us humans. And we’re bound to meet with some misadventure every time we throw caution overboard around waterbodies.
Unfortunately, such careless misadventures are now becoming too rampant in Nigeria. And we’re paying dearly, with scores of lives – both the innocent and the not-too-innocent.
Deaths on our waterways have become so worrisome that only last week, Hon. Uniyem Idem, a member of the House of Representatives from Akwa Ibom State, had to take the matter to the floor of the Green Chamber.
Idem moved a motion seeking to compel the Federal Government to probe the incessant boat accidents across the country leading to loss of lives and property.
His was a motion that resonated with virtually all the members of the House. For, as the lawmaker was speaking, some 150 Nigerians were still missing, in Kogi State, following the capsize of a boat said to be ferrying over 200 persons along the Dambo-Ebuchi waterways on the River Niger.
Only 24 of those passengers, said to be largely market women, children and farmers, had been rescued, with over 50 bodies already recovered. There was little hope left of recovering anybody else alive.
That accident, which happened on November 29, was the third major boat accident the country was recording in two months.
In October, in nearby Niger State, another equally overloaded wooden dugout canoe had capsized and sank in the same River Niger, with over 300 passengers. By the time the tempest calmed on the troubled River, we counted nearly 200 corpses.
The casualty figures of these accidents are now so huge that by the time two boats collided somewhere in Delta State, killing five persons, we almost did not take any notice. Five lives no longer meant anything to us as far as waterway accidents are concerned in Nigeria.
But we can’t just fold our hands and watch more and more poor Nigerians turn belly-up on our inland waters, as though the lives of the poor are any less important than their jet-flying and convoy-driving compatriots.
Incidentally, Hon. Idem’s motion, which was unanimously carried by the Green Chamber, would identify the major causes of the incessant accidents and deaths as “inadequate boat maintenance and poor design, overloading, lack of essential safety equipment and emergency response plans… insufficient training for boat operators, and a lack of strict regulatory enforcement.”
It further pointed out that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) which are statutorily responsible for enforcing safety regulations in the maritime sector, appear to be “more focused on revenue generation than ensuring the safety of passengers.” Incontrovertible! If you asked me. For that has become our lot with the nation’s regulatory agencies which are also saddled with meeting revenue targets.
For me, however, it’s not about the authorities alone. Much of the issues militating against maritime safety in this country, as tangentially pointed out by the House of Representatives, are with us the passengers. It’s not always about NIWA, NIMASA and all the many agencies – although these too have to be more up and doing in enforcing their regulations and more effectively policing the waterways.
There is, for instance, a law against night travels on the waterways, due to poor visibility and other related hazards, but many boat operators stubbornly continue to run night operations. And, shockingly, they get thousands of Nigerians willing to board such nightboats. These operators and passengers see the waterway marshals as irritants – the same way many motorists see the use of seatbelts as a discomfort imposed by the road safety authority to inconvenience motorists. So, they only put on their seatbelts when they see road safety officers. It never occurs to boat operators and passengers that the ban on night travels is for their safety. Worse still, they devise ways of avoiding the more known and better-policed water routes, opting to navigate, even in pitch darkness, through creeks and hazardous inlets. In fact, one of the most tragic boat accidents recently was said to have occurred when a boat on such illicit backwater routes, rammed into an obstruction in its poorly lit path.
There is also this ‘little’ problem of passengers refusing to use the life jacket, even where they are provided.
So many people, for all manner of reasons, ranging from religious to spiritual, hygiene, and downright stupidity, refuse to put on the life jackets provided by the boat operators. It is either that these floaters would stain their beautiful dresses, or get them rumpled – this is usually true of those going for Owambe or other such social gatherings.
One of the narratives that emerged from the Ezetu 1/ Ukubie accident in a boat accident in Bayelsa, last August, where 20 persons drowned, was that many of the passengers refused to wear the life jackets provided by the boat operator. Many of them, as is often the case, collected the jackets, but refused to put them on, preferring to hold onto them until there was a May Day alarm. But, like in all accidents, the boat didn’t seem to have given any warning signs before it caught fire and exploded. There wasn’t the luxury of time for any passenger to put on their life vest. Everyone either got blown into the water or jumped into it, in panic.
Incidentally, of the first 19 victims whose bodies were recovered, only one, according to the manifest, was a Bayelsan, the rest were upland Igbos, whom one could guess were not natural swimmers. So, why would someone who knows he cannot swim be grandstanding over wearing a life jacket? Why would an Ibadan man who has never seen any waterbody bigger than Ogunpa be grandstanding before the Atlantic Ocean at Eti-Osa? I just wonder!
Now, if you feel the public life vest is too dirty for you, why wouldn’t you bring your life vest from home?
It is the same grouse I have against people who board commercial motorcycles and refuse to wear the crash helmet, for no other reason than it would mess up their hairdo.
If you could spend a fortune fixing your hair or gele, you might as well put aside a little change for a taxi (drop) to the venue of the shindig, and leave the motorcycles alone. Or better still, if the helmet wouldn’t sit pretty on your gele, Shagari cap or other such headgear, you might as well unmount them from your head, carry them as checked-in luggage, while you ‘fly’ your okada, and then reinstall your headgear load whenever you arrive at your destination. I hate nonsense!
Of course, this is not to overlook the need for boat operators to keep the life jackets clean and store them in hygienic places. Wash (where possible) and disinfect regularly. That one needs to take safety precautions on the boats is no justification for the unmitigated transfer of eczema, dandruff, bedbugs and lice from helmets and life jackets.
Of course, I have deliberately refused to dabble into these other tales of people putting on a life jacket and vanishing into thin air, or putting on a helmet and their reasoning suddenly taking flight. I guess I’ve watched too many Nollywood movies – including ‘Akoto Olokada’. And that’s not to mention all the Mammy Water tales.
Nigerians must begin to see all these safety directives, including those on overloading, night travels, use of life jackets and craft maintenance, as not obstacles deliberately put by a sadistic government to further punish and frustrate the poor who use these waterways, but as part of efforts to guarantee a more wholesome water travel experience.
Of course, there is the valid argument that it is almost impossible to meet all the requirements of the regulatory agencies, but it is also a valid point that no thirsty person would drink poison simply because it is the only liquid available.
Yes, the boats are not enough, but it is always better to lose some time and wait for the next boat than to overload the available one and capsize midstream.
And, of course, it is always better to get home and delouse, than to wake up dead, simply because you didn’t want to risk a louse or two from a smelly life jacket.
