29 persons have been confirmed dead in a boat accident that occurred on Tuesday in Niger State.
The incident happened in a community called Gausawa in Borgu LGA. at about 11:30am.
The boat was loaded with 90 people including women and children who were going for a condolence visit in another community.
The cause of the accident was attributed to overloading and collision with a tree stomp.
PUNCH Online learnt that the passengers were not wearing any life jacket when the boat accident occurred.
An anonymous source in the ministry of transport disclosed that the boat passengers were not wearing life jacket, pointing out that if they were wearing life jackets more people would have been rescued.
“The passengers were obviously not wearing life jackets, because if they had been, more, if not all of them would have survived the accident.
“Borgu is very far and a lot of these passengers do not like to wear the life jackets for reasons best known to them,” the source said.
As at the time of filing this report, 29 corpses had been recovered with 50 persons rescued alive while two people are said to be still missing.Â
The Director General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Abdullahi Baba-Arah confirmed the accident saying search and recue operation was still ongoing.
He said, “NSEMA has received a report of boat mishap incident at a community called Gausawa in Malale area/ward of Borgu LGA.
“According to our desk officer who led the search and rescue operations, the boat took off from a community called Tugan Sule in Shagunu ward with 90 people on board which includes women and children on the boat heading to Dugga for a condolence visit”
NSEMA DG added that, “The incident happened yesterday, 2nd September 2025 at about 11:30am and the cause was attributed to overloading and collision with a tree stomp.Â
“As at the time of filling this report 29 dead bodies have been recovered with 50 persons rescued alive while 2 people are still missing.Â
“Search and rescue operations are still on going for possible recovery of missing persons.”
This is the second boat accident in Niger State in 2025.
The first one happened in July and was attributed to tree stomp.
The National Inland Waterway Agency had distributed life jackets in Mokwa after the flood incident which killed over 200 people.
