Against the backdrop of the recent boat mishap that claimed the lives of six women and five children along the Bonny River, Chairman of Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, Erastus Awortu, PhD says his administration plans to enact a by-law, which implementation would assure safety on waterways in his domain.

Dr Awortu gave this hint on Friday, January 12, 2024 in Agiokolo II in Finima Community, Bonny LGA when he paid a condolence visit on the bereaved families of last week’s boat mishap.

He informed that the by-law is with a view to enforcing strict compliance to safety rules and regulations by boat operators and sea travellers on the Andoni coastal waters, stressing that the by-law would criminalize failure to use life-saving marine safety equipment, prohibit night journey and overloading in the Andoni water transport system.

The Andoni LGA boss described the latest boat mishap as a wake-up call to strengthen partnership with his Bonny counterpart in order to improve on security and safety of travellers in the Andoni-Bonny coastal waters.

“This is a wake-up call, for me I am going to ensure that we pass a By-law to ensure that no commercial boat ply our rivers carrying passengers without life vest”.

“We will also move towards ending night travelling on our waterways, we will make it an outlaw on our coastal waters especially with local boats that doesn’t have good lighting, apart from the enlightenment which we have already started in order to get the message across to our people, this will also strengthen my partnership with my Bonny counterpart in this regard”. 

The Andoni Council Chairman, while condoling with the bereaved families of the boat mishap, pledged financial assistance and other forms of support to them to ameliorate their plight.

“I have come here with my team to commiserate with you and to comfort you, there is nothing I will do or say that will bring the death back to life, when we suffer loss or lose a love one, even the Bible says we have to comfort to those that mourn, I have come here to comfort my people who are living here and doing business here”

“It is a difficult time for them, they should be strong, we are with them, we are offering our hands of support to them to enable them restart their lives, pick up the broken pieces of their lives gradually”.

“This is like an emergency, when the corpses were recovered we have to support them to bury the dead and we are collating the names of the bereaved Families so that we can reach out to them”

A couple, Promise Festus and Rose Promise, who survived the boat mishap, while recounting their ordeal to the Andoni Council Chairman say they lost four of their children and one grandchild.

According to the wife, Rose Promise, “As our Boat approached the LNG Jetty in Bonny, we couldn’t anchor on the ground, our boat sank because we were much in the boat, we were eight from my family in the boat, five of us died while three survived, four out of the five are my children while one is my grandchild”.

For the husband, Promise Festus, “When the water filled the boat it then broke, people began to drown in the sea, some of them fought hard on the sea to survive while clutching on different objects floating around them but couldn’t make it due to the strong wave and turbulent of the sea”.

The Chairman of Bonny LGA, Anengi Claude-Wilcox was represented by her Vice, Omoni Longjohn during the condolence visit by the delegation of the Andoni Local Government Council to the bereaved Andoni families in Lighthouse, Agiokolo I and Agiokolo II Fishing Settlements in Finima Community, Bonny.

Despite grieving over the loss of their loved ones in the unfortunate boat disaster, indigenes of Andoni in the three Fishing Settlements of Finima Community trouped out enmass and rolled out drums to accord the Andoni Council Chairman and his entourage a warm reception and a rousing welcome.