The Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) has assured that it would soon release its report on the investigation of the recent train / Lagos State staff bus accident, which occurred at Ikeja area of the state recently , and claimed lives . The accident is the second of its kind, since Nigeria’s advent into railway transportation system.
The Director General of the NSIB , Eng Akin Olateru, gave the assurance during a courtesy visit to LASEMA and NRC, revealing that its experts had begun investigation into the causal and contributory factors of the March 9, 2023 train and bus accident in Lagos
He said that his organisation will henceforth deepen relationships with the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on ways of enhancing safety in the rail and road sector.
In a Statement by NSIB , its Director-General, explained that its report, which would be made public soon, would also include safety recommendations to both parties on how a recurrence could be avoided in the future.
He, however, said that NSIB is not blaming any party, but that it is concerned with the issue of safety recommendations on how such accident could be prevented in the future. He stated that NSIB has a well-trained 45 investigators who are deep on investigation of rail and maritime serious incidents and accidents.
According to him , the NSIB has 45 well-trained investigators who are well-trained in the United States, Singapore Academy and other places so, they know their job and It takes time to carry out investigation.
He however pointed out that the train accident investigation will not take time because some of the NSIB investigators have already been Trained on maritime investigation.
Olateru said all the accidents and serious incidents that the NSIB has investigated in the past, it made them public, adding that the body is not hiding anything, why it is not blaming anyone. He said the NSIB has causal and contributory factors that would tell you why the accident happened.
During the visit, Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, the Permanent Secretary, LASEPA, showed some slides on the train-bus accident and how its agency was able to minimise the casualties.
He explained that LASEPA like in the past was swift, effective and efficient in its response to the train-bus collision due to the various layers of information and action plan already established by the Lagos State Government.
According to him, its officials were at the scene of the accident within 10 minutes while rescue operations commenced immediately.
At the NRC, Olateru also reiterated that the report on the accident would be issued to the public soon and explained that the new NSIB Act 2022 followed the due process before it was enacted and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He explained that the essence of the new Act was to minimise all forms of road accidents in the country and safe more lives.
He said: “It is a decision of the Federal Government to do this. Before the passage of this Act, Nigerian Railway Corporation was the regulator, investigator and also the service provider.
“This is conflict of interest and in the wisdom of the Federal executive Council (FEC) in 2018, I made a presentation for the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for centralising all accident investigation in Nigeria in all modes of transportation.”
In his response, Engr. Fidet Okhiria, the Managing Director, NRC, expressed delight to work with NSIB.He lamented the accident and said the loss of lives would have been more catastrophic, but for the professional handling of the train driver.
According to him, no fewer than 1,000 passengers were on board of the train on the day of the incident, stressing that if the train driver had applied the break immediately, the train would have derailed while more lives would have been lost.
