FATHER, MOTHER AND CHILD DROWN IN BADAGRY

LAGOS — THREE members of a family, consisting of the husband, wife and their child, were yesterday, feared drown after a boat mishap on Badagry waterways, Lagos State.
However, their identities were unknown at press time.
Vanguard gathered that the mishap occurred on Wednesday at about 7:30 pm after a wooden canoe and fibre boat collided on Badagry waterways.
Sources told Vanguard that one of the boats took off from Pathfinder enroute Gberefu shore in Badagry and collided with a fibre boat that left from Iyafin, another riverine community within the axis.
Confirming the tragedy, Managing Director of Lagos State Waterways Authority, LASWA, Ms Abisola Kamson and Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos Command, Dolapo Badmos, said the mishap occurred at night.
Kamson lamented that the passengers should not have been on the waterways at that time, saying: “We have outlawed night movement on our waterways.”
She disclosed that since the ban on night movement, they had often sensitized residents of riverine communities on the need to jettison night movement.
We’re investigating cause of mishap
—LASG
According to him, “preliminary investigation revealed that both canoes ran into each other. Both boats are wooden. And that is not the standard on Lagos waterways. We don’t allow wooden canoes on our waterways. We are still conducting investigation on the number of passengers that boarded the canoe. Also, we are still investigating if they were putting on life jacket when the mishap occurred.”
On her part, Dolapo said: “The two boats capsized after they collided. The two boat operators quickly escaped, but the passengers are yet to be recovered.
“Efforts are on by the police and the local divers to recover the missing passengers even as we have intensified our investigation to unravel the true cause of the mishap. Three persons suspected to be father, mother and son are suspected to be the missing passengers.”