President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) ACT 2022 to investigate the boat mishap that occurred at Kpada community in Pategi Local Government Area of Kwara State, on Monday night, June 12, 2023.
The General/ Manager/CEO of the Bureau, Akin Olateru while briefing newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, explained that reports gathered thus far, say the boat was carrying about 250 passengers from a village called Egboti in Niger State.
He called on other local, state, and federal agencies and other relevant stakeholders to maintain effective cooperation and collaboration so as to ensure transportation safety.
He said information received also revealed that 106 fatalities have been recorded while 144 passengers have so far been rescued.
According to him, the NSIB is an autonomous multimodal investigation agency charged with the mandate to investigate air, rail, marine and other modes of transportation accidents and serious incidents in Nigeria with the aim of identifying the probable causes and proffer safety recommendations that can prevent recurrences.
“The purpose of accident investigation, however, is not to apportion blame or liability but to prevent future recurrence of similar incidents.
“In order to carry out this mandate, the Bureau would be carrying out a lot of fact findings through crew and passenger interviews, working with relevant authorities to be able to determine the probable cause(s) of this accident.
“We are committed to a swift response to the accident and serious incident occurrences through our well-equipped Command and Control Centre.
“Accident reporting has also been simplified through our Mobile Application, which was introduced to interface with the public and make it easy for them to communicate with NSIB digitally,” he said.
He solicited information from the public in the form of pictures, video, or recording evidence to help assist in conducting a comprehensive investigation.
