President Bola Ahmed Tinunu on Thursday directed the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) to as a matter of urgency commenced immediate investigation into the boat mishap that occurred at Kpada community in Pategi Local Government Area of Kwara State, on Monday night of June 12 2023
The Director General/CEO, NSIB, Akin Olateru gave the hint during a press conference in Abuja
Olateru noted in line with enabling law of the federal republic of Nigeria, the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) ACT 2022 and the directive of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, NSIB has commenced investigation into the boat mishap.
He stressed that from reports gathered thus far, the boat was said to have conveyed not less than 250 passengers from a village called Egboti in Niger State and information received also reveal that 106 fatalities have been recorded and the total of 144 passengers have been rescued so far.
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 reoccurrences.
“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.
“I will also like to use this medium to reach out to other local, state, federal agencies and other relevant stakeholders to maintain effective cooperation and collaboration so as to ensure transportation safety.
“We are committed to swift response to accident and serious incident occurrences through our well-equipped Command and Control Centre.”
The NSIB boss further maintained that, “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.
“The NSIB, hereby, solicit information from the public in form of pictures, video or recording evidences to help assist in conducting a comprehensive investigation,” Olateru said