Amid rising concerns over recurring transport tragedies in Nigeria — from boat mishaps to road crashes and rail incidents — the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) says it is scaling up efforts to extend its investigation mandate beyond aviation. In this interview with Channels Television, the NSIB Director of Transport Investigation, Abdullahi Babanya, disclosed that the bureau is training new investigators, installing data recorders on highways, increasing campaigns for the use of life jackets on waterways, among others.

Enjoy the excerpts!

Are you involved in the investigation of recent boat accidents in Niger, Taraba and other states, and what can be done to prevent such tragedies?

Let me start by extending our condolences to the families of the victims of the unfortunate Shiroro boat accident (in Niger State) that happened last Saturday. The NSIB got to know about the occurrence through the media, initially through social media. Then, when the mainstream media started carrying the story, it drew our attention. So, we deployed a go-team. Our team arrived — and you have to imagine that they deployed from Abuja down to Niger State, to Shiroro in particular — and they went to gather information on what happened.

From the reports that we got, the preliminary information that we gathered from the site, the boat capsized in the river. The boat was carrying about 39 persons, including a child. And unfortunately, 13 of them perished.

What is important here is to mention that seven of the 39 passengers were wearing life vests, and all seven survived. So, what does this say? It says that some small but important steps need to be taken — just ensure that all those people boarding those boats wear safety jackets, those personal flotation devices. In the event of an accident, they will be able to remain alive and remain on the surface of the water until rescue comes.

Now, talking to the second part of the question. Yes, we are new to those other areas. We can investigate air accidents. Since the inception of this administration, the director general has embarked on a multi-faceted and multi-pronged approach to improving our capacity and capability in investigating those other new modes that have been added to our mandate.

So, we are training our staffers. We are equipping our laboratories. Next week or thereabout, we are going to launch the installation of recording devices on road traffic. Our laboratory is being expanded. We have a materials science laboratory that is also being expanded. We have identified training institutions that will give us the required training that we need.

We have employed several personnel. By September, they are going to resume office. We have already ironed out the kind of training that they require. We were able to harness expertise from professionals in the industry. They gave us their advice, and going to follow that advice to develop the capacity that is required to conduct independent and thorough accident investigations in all modes of transportation in Nigeria.

There seems to be concerns about regulation in aviation, especially after air incidents that have occurred. How do you respond to this?

In safety management, you have to bring all parties that are involved in the system. The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is the regulator. The NCAA makes the rules, certifies the operators, personnel, and equipment, and ensures that the airworthiness of the aircraft and other equipment involved in the navigation of flights is up to standard. They also operate oversight functions to ensure that those certifications, authorisations and approvals that they issued are followed according to the approvals that were granted.

On the other side, you have the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB), which is charged with the independent investigation of occurrences. And when the NSIB investigates, it makes recommendations.

Now, through collaboration between the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau and the NCAA, we monitor compliance with those recommendations. Sometimes, we issue recommendations, and then the parties implement the recommendations. But here and there, you have some failures.

So, we revisit those failures. We look at the effectiveness of those recommendations that were made. And then, if there is a need to re-adjust or to look the other way and expand the scope of the safety net, see what else can be done.

You know, wherever you have humans involved, there are going to be errors. And these errors sometimes lead to unwanted situations. That is why you have constant surveillance of the system. From time to time, you conduct audits, you conduct visits to those facilities, to the aircraft, to the airports, and check the runways from time to time. We have a programme at the beginning of the year on what to and how to look at the entire system. And if something happens in the process, NSIB will investigate. After the investigation, we make recommendations on how to improve the system. So that’s how it works.

Let’s expand to the other routes now covered by NSIB’s new mandate. You’re about to release a document with safety recommendations for rail, marine, and road. Starting with rail transport, what would these recommendations entail?

The mandate of NSIB has been expanded following the signing of the NSIB Establishment Act of 2022 by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Accident investigation is a process, and to comply with the process, we have to have policies, regulations, and procedures on how to conduct the investigation.

For example, before the NSIB Establishment Act of 2022, the operations of the railway in Nigeria had always been the entire business of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). In this case, the NRC is the operator, regulator, and investigator. So, whenever anything goes wrong in the operation of the rail system, which is operated by NRC, it is the same NRC that will conduct the investigation and then proffer solutions on how to fix those.

With the establishment of NSIB, we have an independent accident investigator who is not part of the regulation, who is not part of the operations. The NSIB Act defines the roles of the NRC in the event of an accident. NRC will be responsible for notifying the NSIB that a certain occurrence has happened at a particular location, and that it should arrive on time. Then NSIB will form a go-team that would be deployed to the site, gather evidence, and then come back to the office to analyse the evidence collected.

There are growing concerns — stolen rail sleepers, clips, and train derailments. What would your specific recommendations be, especially since some of these rail lines stretch for thousands of kilometres without any walls or barriers?

There’s always a thin line between safety and security. Most of the issues we are dealing with in the rail system have to do with security. So, we have to ensure that security is provided to the infrastructure of the rail system in Nigeria.

Things that other countries take for granted — in Nigeria, it is not like that. Here, somebody will just go and start picking infrastructure that is meant to serve the people, for whatever reason. Therefore, we have to ensure that security is paramount to ensure that the track system is well protected from pilfering of all kinds and also from intrusion. Because as they run through forests and other areas, animals will also jump onto the tracks and cause accidents. We must look at that.