Calabar — At least, 166 Nigerians travelling from Oron in Akwa Ibom State to Gabon in a wooden boat died on the Calabar water channels yesterday following the capsize of the boat, according to David Akate of the Cross River State Emergency Management Agency.
Already, 45 corpses of some of the victims have been deposited at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital's morgue.
Akate said the passengers were travelling in a big wooden boat from Oron in Akwa Ibom State to Gabon.
He said eyewitnesses said the boat was actually conveying 168 passengers but only two persons were believed to have been rescued.
A marine transporter at the Calabar Inland Waterways, Mr Ikechukwu Egwu, told journalists that the passengers were mostly Igbo traders.
"They are mostly Igbo traders who headed to Oron to board the wooden boat because it was cheaper," he said.
As at writing this report neither the police command in Cross River State nor in Akwa Ibom State was able to make a formal statement.
Comments Post a comment
The daily number of Nigeria Citizens dying everyday by far have exceeded those in war zones of Syria, Congo,Mali and many other crises prone parts of the world. In the past two days alone, I have recorded almost 300 Nigerian deaths from bombing and one single accident alone . In my village, the death count of citizens age between 30 to 50 is beyond my imagination . What is abnormal here is that those who dye from brief illness are often the highly educated and from among the brightest beyond reproach in the community . Most have been my best childhood friends and the pillars of our community. Recently my cousin travelled home to burry his younger brother who had enlarged prostrate gland . This gentleman was recently posted to head one of the oldest and elite Federal Colleges in the Eastern Nigeria. He successfully turned the round to it's old image with perfect grade record and behavioral excellence that caught the attention of community and Government . Life has it's expectancy no doubt, society that often lose highly productive segment of her population this early at disproportionate rate can hardly achieve her social, economic and political objective. Elsewhere , government will set up mechanism to investigate the course of such early death from among this number of highly productive citizens. Jonathan and his government are deeply dogged to power play to pay attention to natural signals by looking into healthcare delivery and drug standards concerns among other critical health concern . By the time this Government is out, our nation will have been mortgaged above those of other nations on the planet and even if you sell every Nigerian citizen to those we're indebted, we'll not be able to pay off the cost. That will make the previous structural adjustment to pay off foreign debt a child play.