At least 29 people have been confirmed dead in a boat accident that occurred on Tuesday in Gausawa community, Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State.
Naijaonpoint learnt that the tragic incident happened around 11:30 a.m. when a boat conveying 90 passengers, including women and children, capsized while heading to Dugga community for a condolence visit.
The boat reportedly collided with a tree stump after being overloaded.
A source in the Ministry of Transport, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told journalists that none of the passengers was wearing a life jacket at the time of the accident.
“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 PUNCH quoted the source as saying.
NSEMA Confirms Incident
Confirming the incident, the Director General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Abdullahi Baba-Arah, said search and rescue operations were still ongoing.
He said, “NSEMA has received a report of a boat mishap incident at Gausawa in Malale area of Borgu LGA. According to our desk officer who led the search and rescue operations, the boat took off from Tugan Sule in Shagunu ward with 90 people on board, including women and children, heading to Dugga for a condolence visit.
“The incident happened yesterday, September 2, 2025, at about 11:30 a.m., and the cause was attributed to overloading and collision with a tree stump. As at the time of filing this report, 29 dead bodies have been recovered, 50 persons rescued alive, while two are still missing.”
The mishap is the second boat accident in Niger State in 2025. The first, which occurred in July, was also blamed on collision with a tree stump.
The latest tragedy comes despite the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) distributing life jackets in Mokwa after flooding earlier in the year claimed over 200 lives.
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