Boat Mishap: NGO to Sponsor Bill on Safe Waterways to Rivers Assembly

A non-governmental organization, Boat Safety Minders Initiative (BOSMI) says it will sponsor a bill to the Rivers State House of Assembly to make it a crime to use fishing boats to convey humans and a crime not to wear proper and internationally approved life vest.

The initiator of BOSMI, Higher King said this on Thursday, January 11, 2024 via a statement he personally signed and made exclusively available to Kristina Reports in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

He also queried why all the multinational companies in Bonny and its environs cannot provide adequate internationally approved passenger boats and approved life vests.

King, who is also a human rights lawyer, tasked multinationals to provide internationally approved ferries with adequate safety gadgets such as life vests, life buoys and signal equipment, among others as part of their corporate social responsibility in their areas of operation.

“The multinational companies should be able to provide these internationally approved passenger boats free of charge as part of their corporate social responsibility just the way they provide for their staff.”

“The companies can also provide same boat as part of empowerment scheme which will go a long way to save lives, after all, the inhabitants of the communities where these companies operate should be alive as well as staff of the companies.

“A situation where these companies provide good boats for their staff and neglect the community is unacceptable in a modern world where all lives are important.”

Higher King further said that the boats presently plying the waterways are fishing boats and not adequate to convey humans across the Atlantic to Bonny.

He noted that BOSMI is responsible for checkmating all activities concerned in taking responsibility and doing the right thing to make sea travel safe in Nigeria.

Commiserating with the families of the deceased, he expressed regrets that the deaths were avoidable, recommending measures like compulsory wearing of life vests and provision of proper passenger boats, which, according to him, “is the practice in other reasonable countries was provided”.