Most Lagos water passengers wear fake life jackets

Nigeria’s waterway system has always been seen as a viable alternative means of transport but it has seen its share of deaths. In Lagos State with a population of over 17 million people, journey on the highly congested roads sometimes becomes a harrowing experience. Here, the government has been at the centre of the call for shift to water transport. Official statistics indicate that 1.8million people travel by water in Lagos every month.

However, once in a while, tragedy strikes, casting a long shadow on safety of passengers on waterways in the state even though, as Olokunbolablessing learnt, there is an enforcement of the use of life jackets.

One may have been tempted to conclude that tragedies on waterways in the state have simply fizzled out through the use of life jackets. Only if it were that simple.

Strings of deaths

In October 2012, 10 people drowned in a boat mishap at Imude in Otto-Awori Local Council Development Area of Lagos, when a passenger boat conveying passengers from Idoluwo-Ile (a coastal village) to Ikotun, capsized.

A passing speedboat created a big wave that upturned the passenger boat about halfway to its destination.

For the passengers who were mandated by the ‘captain’ of the boat to wear their life jackets before the beginning of the journey, nothing bad could ever happen, or so they thought. If there was going to be an accident, they were surely covered. But how wrong they were!

Out of the 20 passengers in the boat, most of whom were children, 10 went under, with their life jackets on and drowned. They were on their way back from the Eid-el-Kabir celebration at the time.

Approximately one year after, in October 2013, a similar accident occurred at Sagbokoji Village in Apapa area of Lagos.

Yet again, a passing ship that had just pulled out of its dock, whipped up enough wave to make a 10-passenger boat seem like a mere paper floating on the water. It was early morning. The boat was ferrying traders to the village for the day’s trade.

With life jackets and all, they all went under but only eight came back up. Two passengers, including a 10-year-old girl, drowned.

Sagbokoji’s Village Head, Chief Anthony Ovime, said all the passengers used life jackets because the state government had made it compulsory.

“I am surprised that some of the passengers died because there is no boat operating in this village that does not have enough life jackets on board,” he told this correspondent.

A community leader in the village offered an explanation on why they died despite the fact that they used life jackets.

“The quality of the life jackets contributed to their death. The use of life jackets is enforced here and you can verify for yourself. The passengers that did not float like the others probably could not swim.

“If they could swim like the others, the bad life jackets they were wearing would not have been a problem.”

For the rescued passengers, their survival could not be attributed to the life jackets they were wearing but their swimming skill.

In April 2011 as well, 10 people drowned after their passenger boat capsized between Oriba Village and Epe area of Lagos.

Small money, cheap life jackets

It was curious that most deaths on Lagos waterways occur in areas where standard ferries do not ply; where poor villagers have to make do with rudimentary canoes, armed with their wits, swimming skills and life jackets that would not save them in the event of mishap. Saturday PUNCH set out on a journey to find out about the quality of life jackets used in some of these areas.

At Liverpool area of Apapa, the underbelly of the bridge there serves as loading dock for traders and passengers from various surrounding coastal villages. Either in the morning or evening, the place is always a beehive of activities.

It did not take long to notice that there were at least five different types of life jackets being used by the many passengers boarding the boats. Most of the life jackets were well worn. Few of them had buckles. They simply slung it over their head.

A boat operator, Mahmoud, later said out of all these, one was the original.

He held up, a three-piece life jacket made with a thick flexible fibre inside and covered with glossy rubbery material. It was obvious the life jacket would float in water.

“New ones of these cost as much as N20,000. But those ones the passengers are wearing cost about N2,000. Some are even sold for N500. They are sewn by tailors but these ones are manufactured in companies,” Mahmoud said.

Asked why he did not give the ‘original’ ones to his passengers, the boat operator turned to this correspondent with an incredulous look on his face.

“How can I afford to give these expensive life jackets to my passengers when they pay either N50 or N100 per trip? They cannot afford these life jackets. These ones are reserved for those who want to charter our boats and pay good money.”

But what if the boat of these passengers capsizes?

“Most of the passengers who use this place live in waterside (coastal areas). They know water well. Apart from that, my boat boy and I can swim. If there is any problem, we will handle it,” Mahmoud said.

When one of the cheap life jackets was examined, the floating material put in it was not the kind of fibre used in the other type. It was a thick and stiff material, which the operator described simply as floater.

Thrown in the water, it floated. But this kind of life jacket will later be put to test at the Sagbokoji local jetty.

Our experiment: Swimming saves us

At the local pier, the only link the people of Sagbokoji have with the main Apapa, there are no ferries. The residents said they wished the government would arrange for a ferry to take them to and fro the village because their small boats are increasingly endangered by passing ships.

There was no single three-piece life jacket (the kind described as ‘original’ at Liverpool) in sight here. Only few of the lifejackets did not look too worn. Some of them had torn, revealing white package cushioning, the kind found in the packaging of new electronics.

Saturday PUNCH set out to test how effective the life jackets were.

Bereft of any swimming ability to make the venture a safe experiment, this correspondent could not personally put the efficacy of the life jackets to test. But two swimmers, Anthony Tudonu and his friend, Augustine, volunteered to take on the challenge.

The party set out. Midway to Sagbokoji, approximately the same place where two passengers drowned two months before, Tudonu and Augustine donned their life jackets and jumped in the water.

They had been previously given instruction not to make any attempt to float at first since they had affirmed that they were adept swimmers.

“Let yourselves go. Let’s see if your life jacket will bring you up,” they were told.

It was noticed that none of the life jackets in the boat had any functional buckle. This correspondent was given one, whose single strap he had to tie around himself.

Tudonu and Augustine put theirs on and also tied the straps around their waists.

Augustine who was the first to jump in the water, stayed up for a moment and the life jacket’s strap gave way. It easily floated off above the boy’s head as the life jacket had no attachment to his body.

Tudonu also jumped in the water and a similar thing occurred. But they both stayed afloat despite the life jackets’ uselessness.

The boys said they were “born in water”.

“We are Egun (a riverine tribe with Badagry origins). We have lived on water all our lives. No matter how big the water is, we can swim it. We use the life jacket because Lagos State Waterways lifeguards will arrest us if we don’t,” Tudonu said.

At the pier, a LASWA uniformed lifeguard stood watching the boats loading and offloading. His concern was the use of life jackets; whether they were tattered or utterly useless was not his job to monitor, it seemed.

A boat operator, Jidu Ifije, said there was no way they could afford quality life jackets from the fares they collect from passengers.

“How long will I be able to put together more than N10,000 for each of the 10 life jackets I need to provide in my boat? That is over N100,000. When will these N50 fares I am collecting be able to make that possible?”

Passengers too seem to know that the life jackets they wear on the boats leave much to be desired.

While some of them said they had nothing to worry about since they could swim, some said putting it on simply gives them a sense of safety.

We sew the cheap life jackets – Tailor

From the beginning to the end, it costs less than N700 to make a life jacket, the kind used at the Sagbokoji and Liverpool piers.

Mrs. Jojo Masano, a tailor in Apapa, said she buys the materials for the life jackets, which she sews for boat operators, at Jankara Market in the Lagos Island.

She said, “It depends on what they want. For example, some people request for the N500 ones. Most of the operators here use the type we produce for N1,500.

“We use the fabric used for umbrella or we use linen. The one either umbrella fabric is the one we sell for N1,500. We buy the floater, (the white package cushioning) at the market also.”

She said she was aware some people died at Sagbokoji in October. “Those who died must have used life jackets of poor quality. We expect the water to be rough in August; that is when many boat operators come to us to sew more life jackets.

“I sewed a personal lifejacket for the use of my daughter anytime she goes to school. It is a cheap one though, but I will get enough money to sew a more quality one for her in a couple of months.”

The rich never die

Most of the traders seen in Liverpool and Sagbokoji would not be able to afford a N500 fare from Ikorodu to Marina, which a passenger would pay to board an organised ferry with quality life jackets.

The residents of these ‘slum’ coastal areas would probably see the white-collar passengers, who have the wherewithal to board the real ferries on daily basis as the ‘rich’.

None of the mishaps on the Lagos waterways in recent years has involved a ferry. Also, as a result of the money the ferry services make from passengers, they are able to afford  standard life jackets.

Ikorodu-Marina is one of the water routes where there are functional ferry services. Every category of passengers can be found here. For the banker in his crisp suit to the oil company employees to the casual worker who would rather not brave the humongous daily road traffic between Ikorodu and Lagos Island, the ferry service offers a necessary alternative.

Saturday PUNCH noticed that the life jackets here bear a sharp contrast to those found in poor coastal areas.

A passenger, Mr. Dipo Alonge, who queued up for his Metro Ferry Service ticket to Marina, said the first time he boarded the ferry in 2011, the first thing he had to examine was the life jacket.

“I noticed that the life jackets were good. I think the company is careful not to bring sub-standard life jackets here because the state government may sanction them or worse, withdraw their operating licence.

“The journey to Marina takes me less than 45 minutes. You can imagine what it will be like if I have to go by road. I would have been sacked in the insurance company where I work.”

An official of Metro Ferry Service, who did not want to be named, said morning and evening were the peak periods at the jetty.

“We have never had any mishap and we don’t expect one. That is not to say if it happens, we are not adequately covered. Our life jackets are not the cheap ones sewn by tailors,” he said.

But if the situation in Ikorodu was an ideal situation, what this correspondent saw at the Agboyi-Ketu jetty was the tangential opposite.

For about 50 minutes spent at the jetty as boats came and go, no single life jacket was seen. No passenger requested for one and no operator offered any.

The jetty, serves small communities such as Agboyi 2, Agboyi 3, Oko Agbon and Papa.

74-year-old passenger, Pa Ibrahim Odunsi, who jumped out of one of the boats with evidence that he was used to it, said it would be “a waste of time” requesting for life jackets.

“The journey to Oko Agbon that I came from is very short. Have you ever heard of any mishap here in the past five years? We have nothing to worry about,” he said.

Asked if he could swim in the event of an inadvertent mishap, he said he was a good swimmer when he was younger but was sure, “people around here will come to the rescue.”

One of the boat operators, Bili, said they had life jackets. But none could be seen in his boat at the time.

Asked how he procured the ones he had, he said a tailor who specialises in it sewed it at the rate of N1,500 each.

But a sanitation superivisor, who said he had been working at the jetty in the last three years, Mr. Babatunde Adeosun, shed more light on the situation at the jetty.

He said, “There is a life guard stationed here but why people here are not usually forced to use life jackets is that the journey is short. The operators do have the cheap life jackets. They cannot afford the expensive ones because they collect little money from passengers. The farthest community they have to reach by boat is not more than N50.

“Most times, the operators do not even collect money because they are indigenes of these communities and when they see people they know, they give them free passage.

“There was a time a ferry operator brought a ferry here with intention of plying the Ketu-Marina route. The people said they could not afford the N500 he wanted to charge at the time. They requested that he reduced it to N200. He told them that would be operating at a loss. He had to leave. No ferry service has operated here since then.”

He said the residents of the area would rather brave the road traffic and pay less than use water transport.

Techonology behind a life jacket

 A life jacket is a flotation device designed to keep a person’s airway clear of the water whether such person is conscious or unconscious in case of any eventuality. A standard one is made from two layers of bonded polyurethane which can be inflated or from foam.

According to a brochure of the Personal Flotation Device Manufacturers, lifejackets are designed to keep one afloat in water and give extra time till rescue comes.

“Time can mean the difference between life and death, because it does not take long to drown. In fact, it takes 60 seconds for an adult to drown and 20 seconds for a child to drown. Before you shove off (in your boat), make sure everyone aboard is wearing a life jacket and all straps, are fastened,” the PFDM said.

A standard life jacket fits snugly on the body in a way that it does not entangle a passenger or floats off the body.

Mr. Merry Tokula, an offshore fabrication worker, whose work requires consistent use of life jackets, explained that there are many different types of life jackets, with each serving different purposes.

He said, “The one we use in offshore work is different from the kind used for rescue purposes. There is a type of life jacket specific to commercial boat operation.

“What people don’t understand is that a life jacket may make the difference between life and death for you in case of a mishap even if you are a good swimmer. Swimming in a big swimming pool is different from swimming in a large river.

“A good life jacket should be tight around the body in such a way that without effort, it makes the body buoyant. The floating material inside it must not be heavy and should not soak in water by any means. You don’t just use any material to make a life jacket. Attention is given to thick water repellant materials combined with a buoyant polyurethane material within it. Some sophisticated life jackets even use canisters that inflate it with air automatically immediately it becomes immersed.”

‘We do our best in enforcement’

 The Managing Director of LASWA, Mr. Yinka Marinho, said his agency had faced the challenge of changing the orientation of passengers and boat operators on the use of standard life jackets for a long time.

He took this correspondent to a different part of LASWA’s yard in Ikoyi, where numerous life jackets, which he said were seized from operators on account of their disfunctionality were packed.

Marinho said, “We have gone as far as impounding boats in a bid to enforce the use of standard life jackets. It is simple. If you put on a life jacket and you do not fasten it or put on one that does not have good straps, in the event of a mishap, it will float and you will sink beneath it.

“In Lagos now, 1.8 million people travel by water every month. Because of this, the use of life jacket is first on the safety focus of LASWA. Places like Sagbokoji have a more serious issues owing to their closeness to the path of big ships. The waves generated by passing ships can be quite enormous, thereby putting the small boats in danger.

“The enforcement of life vests in some of these places is like a driver who sees a road safety official and quickly crosses his seat belt over his chest but removes it as soon as he passes the official. Even though, we have our life guards at these different places, there is a limit to what they can do because the passengers themselves try to deceive them into thinking they have properly worn their life vests. They say they are  ‘fishes’ and even go as far as trying to beat up life guards who try to go a step further to enforce proper usage.”

Marinho said there was no excuse for a boat operator not to be able to afford a standard life jacket. He said some of them had been operating for a long time. He added that the government planned to distribute 5,500 life jackets for use of passengers especially in the rural coastal communities.

The quality of most of the life jackets seen at the local docks in Lagos bears not much resemblance to the standard ones he showed this correspondent in his office.

However, outside Lagos, there is no indication that there is much enforcement of the use of life jackets, especially in rural communities where daily travel is by water.

Two major incidents in Niger State in the last few months ago attest to this. In September 2013, more than 42 people were confirmed drowned when their passenger boat capsized on River Niger close to Malilli village in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger. Another 100 of the passengers were unaccounted for.

A similar mishap led to the death of 18 passengers one week after, also on the River Niger, at Kokoli Village, Agwarra Local Government Area of Niger. A family lost six daughters in the mishap. None of the passengers were said to have used a life jacket.

Recently, on Christmas Day, 12 people died in a boat mishap along the Ikoli River at Ayama in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The following day, 40 people died in a boat mishap on River Buruku  Local Government Area of Benue State. In these two cases the victims reportedly did not wear life jackets.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a federal law yet specifically targetting the use of lifejackets.

 A doctor and writer, Tony Marinho, raised the alarm over the lifejacket culture in the country.

 “How much is a simple lifejacket? Over 2,000 fellow Nigerians drown annually – ten plane loads of Nigerians – still no Lifejacket Law,” he said.