Deaths on the waterways of Nigeria have gone down significantly as the National Inland Waterways Authority, NIWA said it recorded a 72 per cent reduction in fatalities in 2025.
This comes after reforms and enforcement of the Water Transportation Code introduced under the leadership of its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji.
Industry data show that deaths from boat accidents, which averaged 330 annually in 2021 and 2022, dropped to 231 in 2024 and further plummeted to 92 between January and August 2025.
Experts in the sector said the milestone represents a 60 per cent decline from last year and the sharpest reduction in decades.
The development comes from the Inland Waterways Transportation Regulations 2023, unveiled in April last year by the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, and fully implemented by NIWA.
In the meantime, stakeholders in the maritime sector argue that more needs to be done, as they urged NIWA to rev up free life-jacket distribution nationwide, recruit more water marshals to cover Nigeria’s vast waterways, and accelerate the replacement of wooden canoes with modern vessels.
