Jigawa boat accident: Another Nigerian water disaster but why does it keep happening?
The pattern is now tiresomely familiar in Nigeria.
Many died in a boat accident; officials say regulations must be followed; their calls are ignored; campaigners say the resources are not there; another disaster happened.
This time, a search and rescue team is looking for survivors from a wooden boat that capsized in Jigawa state.
There were thought to be 40 people, mostly women farmers and workers, when it sank on Sunday. 23 people have been rescued alive but seven bodies have been found in the river so far.
Last month, a boat accident in the Benue River in central Nigeria claimed the lives of 12 people, including a pregnant woman and six children.
At the beginning of this year, 14 people lost their lives when their boat capsized in Gumbi, Kebbi state. They were returning from a wedding ceremony, escorting the bride to her new husband’s home.
So far this year, more than 55 people have lost their lives in boat accidents, with dozens of bodies still to be found.
For millions of Nigerians, especially in rural areas, rivers are a very useful means of transportation. Since most villages are on or near waterways with few bridges and poor roads to facilitate navigation, wooden rickety boats are often the only way for people to reach family members elsewhere, take goods to market, or see foreign lands.
For people like Siyaka Bello, the painful memory of losing someone in the water is still fresh. Last year, his wife was returning from the Kebbi village market when she and eight others lost their lives.
“It seems like yesterday you left four children, and I still find it difficult to raise them alone.
“Every time I pass by a body of water, I only think about him,” she said.
The reasons why water transport in Nigeria is so dangerous are hard to predict:
After every disaster, the authorities promise to do better. But in the water there is little, if any, change.
Mallam Sala Altine has a traditional title that carries the weight of life and death in the river. He is Sarkin Ruwan Shiroro – the man entrusted with keeping people safe in Lake Shiroro in Niger state, where some of Nigeria’s worst boating accidents have occurred.
The Niger River, the third longest in Africa, flows through the region it shares its name, where it is fed by many small rivers and interconnected waterways, creating an environment where fatal accidents are frequent and severe.
Between January 2023 and October 2025, Niger State accounted for the majority of the nearly 860 deaths recorded across Nigeria. Another report revealed that 253 people died in the province between June 2023 and August 2025.
Altine says there is a huge shortage of protective jackets even though the government has repeatedly promised to provide them.
“Our boats usually carry more than 100 passengers. But most of the time, we can only provide life jackets for 10 people, or less, because we don’t have enough,” he explained.
“We want to make it a law that everyone who gets on a boat must wear a life jacket. But we can’t use that because we don’t have one to give them.”
He says that after one accident that claimed 13 lives, the government promised to provide them with more jackets.
“But I don’t know if the numbers were cut off along the way, because what we finally got was very little.”
Altine says it pains him to see passengers boarding boats without security.
