The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has attributed the 2024 boat accident on the Anam River, which claimed the life of Nollywood actor Junior Pope and four others, to human error rather than mechanical failure

Managing Director of NIWA, Bola Oyebamiji, made this known on Thursday during a multi-modal transportation stakeholders’ forum held in Abuja.

According to him, preliminary investigations revealed that some of the passengers on board the ill-fated vessel had refused to wear life jackets offered to them before departure.

“It was not mechanical failure, not impediments in the water or weather challenges, but purely a flagrant disregard for rules and regulations guiding movement on the inland waterways,” Oyebamiji said.

He decried the incident, stating that such acts of negligence by waterway users undermine the agency’s ongoing efforts to promote safety and compliance across Nigeria’s inland transport routes.

He also appealed to stakeholders and the public to support NIWA in driving nationwide safety awareness.

Junior Pope and four crew members drowned in April 2024 while returning from a movie shoot for Another Side of Life, produced by Adanma. Their boat was said to have capsized at Cable Point along the River Niger waterside in Asaba, Delta State. (Nigerian Tribune)