Tarzan Urges Gradual Certification Rollout, Warns ‘Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day’

National President of Association of Tourist Boat Operators and Water Transporters of Nigeria  (ATBOWATON), Dr Gani Tarzan Balogun, in this brief interview with SAMUEL BENJAMIN spoke on steps to ensure safety on waterways in Nigeria

What is responsible for the frequent boat mishaps on waterways?

The government is going its best to make sure there is no accident on the waterways. But what I think we can do or government can do is that people must obey the rules and regulations that govern the waterways. Also, the government should provide necessary equipment for the law enforcement agencies to aid them in enforcing compliance to the laws so that people will obey the rules and regulation of the waterways.

One of the issues some of the stakeholders have raised is that of certification as many of the boat operators do not have formal or structured training before starting operation? 

We have a ministry that is in charge of things like that, and we are working on that. The government wants to make sure everybody operating on the waterways is certified but Rome was not built in a day, they have to move it gradually, or else there would be a lot of battle on the waterways. Yes, there are so many people operating within the sector without a good knowledge of what’s happening.

However, reading in the book about what they do in America or Russia or Germany should not just wholly transported here because we have different terrains. Our waterways are different from each other so, we need to know about that.  Like I said earlier, I think government is trying as there is a committee in place looking at the issues and operators are part of the committee. So all of us should support them and tell them what is going on in the waterways, where they need to assist the operators and all that.