Usman Tahir is the Chief Superintendent of Police at the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) Lagos Office. In this Interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde, he speaks on the readiness of the Police to ensure safety of passengers on Lagos waterways, the partial closure of the Third mainland bridge and its effect of water transportation, among others.
“The rift between NIWA and LASWA has not in any way affected us because the Nigerian Police is one”
Can you lead us into some of your duties here at NIWA?
Thank you very much, firstly my duty here is to protect the NIWA clients; that is my main responsibility not leaving out those that patronize the NIWA Jetty, because we can't say because our main function is to protect NIWA’s clients and overlook some certain things at the jetties. So, we also ensure safety of those that board at our jetties and some of the things we do include; one, we ensure that passengers put on their life jacket right from the jetty; number two, we ensure that there is nothing like overloading on the side of the boat operators; thirdly, we don't allow night navigation. These are the things we do to protect passengers.
When you said NIWA clients, does it mean your primary function here is just to protect government officials?
Well, not really the official so to say alone, but whoever patronizes NIWA, NIWA has their Police command, so whatever it's happening outside NIWA, it's not my business, you know NIWA is into dredging and all that, so our main function is to protect these officials during these assignments. You know also that NIWA is also generating revenue for the government, at times it may be difficult as some may not want to pay tax or may even want to attack the officials, so ours it's just to protect them while carrying out these activities. Just like NIMASA has the Naval officers attached to them, the FIRS has the Police attached to them even the Customs have armed men just to ensure protection of the officers who are on duty, so that's just it for NIWA too.
What is the state of the patrol boats, the last time we spoke you said they were faulty?
Yes, the patrol boat is in good condition and functioning well now, and even some of our men have gone out this morning to patrol just to ensure safety.
How many patrol boats do you have presently and have you been able to make any arrest?
For now, we have only one, but very soon more will be added. On the arrest, it’s not necessary we arrest all the time, there are corrective measures, you don't need to arrest at times, sometimes what they need is for us to educate them, let them know the essence of putting on life jackets and why they must not patrol at night and so on. These are part of the education we give to the boat operators, we arrest most time when defaulters refuse to adhere to the guidelines and instructions given. And we arrest, we sue them.
Do you just arrest the boat operators and passengers that perhaps refused to wear the life jacket?
Last year, about 18 secondary school children from Government Secondary School Takwa Bay were arrested for not having life jackets, but we have to leave them because they are children, but we arrested the School Principal and the boat operator that time.
What's the synergy between you and the Marine Police?
We work hard-in-hand; the different is that our own principal duty is to protect NIWA clients while marine Police principal duty is to enforce government decision on the waters. So at times when we arrest defaulters, we hand them over to the marine Police.
The third mainland bridge has been shut, this will naturally result to having more passengers using the waterways, how prepared are you to handle this traffic and ensure compliance?
We are fully prepared to ensure safety of passengers on the waterways and right now, NIWA is even trying to have a jetty at Iyana Oworo axis of Lagos and the marine police including some of our men will be stationed there to work side by side with the Marine police at those strategic places.
Do we have enough life jackets for those boarding the boats?
Yes, most of the boat operators have complied and many of them now have enough life jackets asides that there are provisions to get more life jackets. Asides all these, we inspect them from time to time and when we find the expired ones or the weak ones we destroy them, there is no way we can have a boat without life jacket, that's just impossible presently.
How has the rift between NIWA and LASWA affected you in terms of your operations on the waterways?
The rift has not in any way affected us because the Nigerian Police is one, I am in NIWA today, but tomorrow I can be in LASWA as a police man whether I work for NIWA or LASWA, I have the right to arrest you if you are not doing the right thing.
Boat operators allege that your men including marine police are always in the habit of extorting them, are you aware of this?
No, I think the allegation is false; the only money collected from boat operators is the fee they pay for boat registration, you pay when registering your boats, and NIWA collects this money and not the police So, to say Marine police or our men extort boat operators maybe wrong, most times, this registration fee is collected by the police, like I told you earlier many may want to evade tax or not pay some stipulated amount they ought to pay to the government. So when the police is brought to ensure that they don't rub the government of this fund, they believe it is the police that collects this money.
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