ANALYTICAL CROSS EXAMINATION OF THE CAUSAL FACTORS OF PASSENGER'S VESSEL ACCIDENTS ALONG INLAND WATERWAYS IN SOUTH-SOUTH REGION, NIGERIA

Inland waterways transportation sector is a fundamental part of the economy and has contributed significantly to national development. Notwithstanding, due to severe infrastructural and human capacity neglect, significant numbers of accidents have occurred along the inland waterways resulting in injuries, fatalities, damage to the vessel itself attributable to myriads of factors. The study aimed at dissecting the causal factors of passenger’s vessel accident in south-south region. The volume of daily passengers across selected 10 jetties from five coastal states (Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River and Akwa Ibom) with commercial boating activities obtained from the archive of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) formed the population of this study. The sample size was determined by substituting the total volume of daily passengers in the Taro Yamene formular resulting in the designed, validation and distribution of a total of 395 copies of questionnaire to respondents to elicit relevant information for the study. Descriptive statistics was employed in the discussion whereas Kruskal Wallis test was deployed for data analysis. The finding revealed that passenger vessel accidents/incidents often (64.1%) take place and the consequences are fatal (51.4%) and damaging (37.1%). Over-speeding (36.4%) and overloading (36.4%) were the leading human factors responsible for vessel mishaps while storm/wind (36.9%) and navigator failure (37.4%) were the leading natural and mechanical factors respectively. There was significant difference in causal factors such as negligence to the occupational safety and healthy procedure (p < 0.05), fatigue on the part of the operator of the passenger vessels (p < 0.05) and carelessness or recklessness under commercial pressures (p < 0.05). The study concluded that accidents often happen due to over-speeding and overloading and their outcome are fatal due to refusal to wear lifejacket among commuters. As a result, the study recommended compulsory use of lifejackets, periodic conduct of integrity test on vessels, mandatory certification programmes for all operators, enforcement of regulatory laws, stakeholder’s collaboration and sensitization of commuters on strict adherence to safety rules