The Federal Government recently appointed Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of NIWA. With the agency battling with incessant boat mishaps amid a Supreme Court verdict in its favour, the new NIWA Boss spoke with selected journalists on his plans for the nation’s inland waterways. Excerpts
Since you took over what has changed at NIWA?
When I came onboard, I summoned a meeting of all the Area Managers to know their challenges and to make them sign a Performance Bond on their deliverables. I signed a Performance Bond with the Minister, and so the Area Managers all had to sign their own Performance Bond with me. It’s a way of giving them all a Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to guide their work. I have had three meetings in a spate of five months with all the Area Managers in NIWA since I took over office. With the KPI that I gave the Area Managers; they can now measure their performance in office. Before I came, the NIWA Area Managers had no performance indicators to gauge their performance in office. But since I signed the Performance Bond with the Minister, I had to make the Area Managers sign one with me so that we will all be on the same page.
Can you share with us some of the contents of the Performance Bond that the Area Managers signed with you?
One of the targets I gave the Area Managers is on the number of navigable waterways that we currently have in this country. The country has about 10,000kilometres of waterways, but anytime you search via Google, you will always find out that only 3,000kilometres are navigable. I have given the Area Managers a target of increasing navigable waterways in Nigeria from 3,000kilometres to 5,000kilometres. This means that as part of the deliverables that I gave the Area Managers, NIWA has to dredge an additional 2,000kilometres of waterways to meet the target of 5,000kilometres of navigable inland waterways. Also, another target I gave the Area Managers is tied to the number of jetties that NIWA has. I asked them to give me the number of jetties that they want to add to what they already have. In the next four years, we need to know the number of jetties that we will want to build so that by 2027, we would have said that this number of jetties were built during this period. Also, on the issue of wrecks, I gave each Area Managers numbers of wrecks to remove. Lagos, being our busiest Area got a target of five wrecks to remove yearly. Again, on boats, I told the Lagos Area Managers that I expect 2,200 boats to be licensed on a yearly basis, being our busiest axis. Also, I charged the Lagos Area Managers to train and license 1,500 Skippers on a yearly basis. So all this formed part of the targets that I gave to each Area Managers during our meetings for them to measure their performance in office on a yearly basis. This will let everybody have a sense of direction and know what they are expected to do.
What’s your take on incessant boat mishaps on Nigeria’s waterways?
Accidents happen on the road. Some may be man-made, while some could be as a result of human error. Some accidents happen due to natural occurrences like heavy rain. This is the same thing that is happening on our inland waterways. The argument in some quarters that NIWA should be scrapped because of accidents on our waterways is not valid. Why has there not been calls for the scrapping of the Federal Road Safety Corporation (FRSC) because of accidents that happens on our highways? Yes, Infrastructurally, NIWA needs to improve. We need more allocations from the Federal purse to improve waterways infrastructure in this country. When we compare the amount of money that is spent on maintaining our roads and highways annually, NIWA doesn’t see one-tenth of such amount. So, you see that the agency has been handicapped over the years due to poor funding. There is nothing wrong if NIWA mounts a security boat at every 10 kilometers of the nation’s inland waterways. In Lagos alone, we need about 10 Ambulances to enhance the agency’s visibility on the waterways so that when accidents occur, the speed of response will be swift. To implement effective regulation of the inland waterways is capital intensive.
The Supreme Court recently ended the scramble for inland waterways control being pushed by some State governments by ceding that power to the Federal Government under the Exclusive List. What’s your taker on the whole issue?
The Supreme Court judgement is a welcome development, but that does not mean that the State Governments cannot invest in waterways development. Don’t forget that the Federal Government allocates money to State government to develop their States. So, if any State government is building jetties, it is a welcome development because it is part of the reason why the Federal Government gives State governments allocations. NIWA has not asked any State government not to build waterways infrastructure. What NIWA is saying and has been affirmed by the Supreme Court is that the control and regulation of inland waterways is under the Exclusive List of government. We want the State governments to build mote jetties so that we can ask our boats to go there. It won’t even be nice if State governments don’t invest in inland waterways development. We need State governments to do more in inland waterways development by helping to build more jetties. They get allocations from the Federal Government. The Federal and State government should collaborate more on inland waterways development. State governments should approach NIWA for permit to build jetties in their respective State. It will help the use of inland waterways across the country.
Now, the Supreme Court has handed sole regulation of inland waterways to NIWA. What should waterways users expect to see going forward?
With the Supreme Court judgement, we cannot afford to have any lapses any longer. Going forward, we have deployed five patrol boats across the waterways in Lagos, being our busiest axis. One patrol boat has been taken to Badagry to cover that axis. Another has been taken to Badore; another one has been deployed at Ikorodu; another deployed at Ijegun while the last one is at Marina here. The deployment of these patrol boats was strategic. Take for instance the choice of Ijegun. You know Badagry is far, so if anything happens along the waterways leading to Badagry, before the patrol boat stationed in Badagry arrives, the one in Ijegunwould have got there. The patrol boats have been deployed along this axis to monitor waterways issues like over speeding, overloading and others. The deployment of these patrol boats is just a way of increasing our presence on the waterways. We have also installed a Gauge inside the water here in Marina. The Gauge gives us information about the wave movement. It monitors wave movement and gives us information of what to expect every day. The Gauge has a range of monitoring from Marina to Badagry and Ikorodu. We are also looking at deploying some boats in the Northern part of the country because accidents happen in this area due to the rickety boats that are used in this area. We also want to have Water Marshals across the country. This is already in place in Lagos, but we hope to replicate it nationwide going forward.
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