Stop the Bleeding on Our Waterways

Last Thursday’s tragedy in Goronyo, Sokoto State, is a wound that will not heal quickly. An overloaded boat capsized on the River Rima, killing at least 53 people, most of them children aged between 10 and 15. They were not tourists. They were farm owners and labourers heading to rice fields, the same journey thousands make every rainy season when the roads are cut off. Some of the bodies were wrapped in mats and laid out in the forecourt of a community mosque ahead of mass burial. What a way to end a journey to the farms.

The Presidency, in its statement after the incident, expressed deep sorrow and directed the National Inland Waterways Authority and the National Emergency Management Agency to intensify rescue operations and enforce safety regulations on all inland waterways. President Bola Tinubu condoled with families and urged state governments to ensure boats are not overloaded and do not travel at night.

This is not an isolated accident. It is part of a grim, repeating pattern across Northern Nigeria. In September 2025, at least 60 people drowned in Gausawa, Niger State, when an overloaded boat hit a tree stump on the Kainji reservoir. Women and children made up most of the victims. In February 2026, 14 people, 13 women and a child, died in Yauri, Kebbi State, after a boat conveying more than 100 passengers capsized while returning from a wedding. In January 2026, 25 people died and 14 went missing after a canoe from Adiyani in Jigawa State capsized in Nguru, Yobe State. The victims were returning from market. In August 2025, more than 40 people were declared missing after a boat carrying over 50 passengers capsized in Sokoto while going to market. Between 2020 and 2022, at least 701 people died in 53 boat accidents nationwide, and the North accounts for the overwhelming share.

It is important for this newspaper to state the contrast plainly. The South especially South South and parts of the South West are lined with rivers, creeks, and lagoons. Communities in Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Lagos and Ondo depend on water transport daily. Yet fatal mass-casualty boat accidents are far less frequent there. Accidents still happen. Six young people drowned in Lagos in December 2025. But they rarely reach the scale of 50 or 60 deaths at once.

The question, therefore, is: why the difference? Because those states have, over time, invested in regulated jetties, passenger manifests, life jackets, and night-travel bans that are at least partially enforced. Lagos, for instance, has a Waterways Authority with patrol boats and a digital ticketing system. Boat operators in the South South, under pressure from oil companies and riverine communities, have also adopted some safety standards. In the North, the same rivers, the Niger, Benue, Rima and Sokoto, serve as highways for millions during the rainy season. Yet the infrastructure of safety is almost absent.

Three factors explain why the carnage persists in the North. First is poverty and desperation. Most victims are farmers, traders and students who cannot afford road transport or who have no roads at all. A wooden canoe becomes the only option. Operators maximize profit by cramming 100 people into a boat built for 30. Second is weak enforcement. NIWA’s rules on overloading, life jackets, and daylight sailing exist on paper. In rural Goronyo or Yauri, there are no marshals, no jetty officials, no penalties. Night travel continues because markets close late. Wooden, structurally defective boats are still in use because there is no affordable alternative. Third is climate and neglect. Flooding during the rainy season swells rivers and hides submerged tree stumps. Beyond nature, there has been decades of neglect of inland waterway infrastructure in the North. No lighted buoys, no rescue boats stationed locally, no public awareness campaigns in local languages.

To arrest this anomaly, we urge government at all levels to move from condolence to consequence. Condolences are necessary. But we have heard them before. Too many times before. NIWA must be properly funded and empowered so that every major jetty in Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Jigawa, Kwara and other states under threats has officials with powers to impound overloaded boats. The 72 percent drop in accidents reported in early 2025 must be sustained and expanded northward, not celebrated and forgotten. The Federal and State governments should also introduce a boat-recapitalization fund, similar to what was done for buses, to replace wooden canoes with safer fibre boats equipped with life jackets. It cannot be left to poor operators alone.

Also, traditional rulers, local government chairmen and community leaders must be held accountable when accidents occur in their domains due to obvious negligence. At the same time, citizens must refuse to board overloaded boats, even if it means missing the market. Culture and urgency cannot continue to override safety. NEMA and State Emergency Agencies need boats, divers and communication equipment pre-positioned in riverine local governments before the rains, not after the bodies are counted. Rescue should not depend on volunteers with ropes.

Finally, we insist that waterways must be treated like roads in planning and budgeting. There should be allocations for dredging, signage, lighting and the removal of hazards like tree stumps. We must understand that water transport is not a side issue. It is critical infrastructure for a region where millions depend on rivers to move people and produce.

In our opinion, a nation that loses 50 children in one afternoon to a preventable accident cannot claim to be progressing. The North feeds the country. Its farmers cross these rivers to grow the rice and vegetables on our tables. They deserve the same right to safe travel that citizens in Lagos or Port Harcourt expect. The Presidency’s directive after Sokoto must not end on paper. Let this be the last mass burial we write about. The rivers are not the killers. Negligence is. And negligence can be stopped.