Emergency officials and residents say more than 50 bodies have now been recovered from the Gorau boat accident, but authorities are still reconciling the number of passengers, survivors and those missing.
The death toll from the boat accident in Gorau, Goronyo Local Government Area of Sokoto State, has risen above 50 as emergency officials continue to reconcile conflicting figures on the number of passengers, survivors, and those still missing.
Local sources, however, put the number at 53.
Vanguard reported on Friday that 53 bodies had been recovered after additional victims were brought out of the river.
Similarly, a local journalist, Sharhabilu Kiliya, told Leadership that residents had buried 46 victims before seven additional bodies were recovered, bringing the number to 53.
The differing figures emerged as NEMA, the Sokoto State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), security agencies, the Nigerian Red Cross, and local divers continued efforts to establish how many people were aboard the boat.
Mr Abubakar said emergency officials were meeting with other agencies and local authorities to reconcile their records.
SEMA also said officials were still assessing the situation and had yet to establish a definitive number of people affected.
The latest figures are higher than those initially provided to PREMIUM TIMES by the Sokoto State Police Command.
The command’s spokesperson, Ahmad Rufai, told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone on Thursday that 77 passengers were travelling from Gorau to Birjingo when the boat capsized.
He said 46 bodies had been recovered at the time, seven passengers rescued alive, and 24 declared missing.
“There were 77 passengers moving from Gorau to Birjingo. Seven rescued alive and 46 recovered dead, while 24 declared missing. Search is still on,” Mr Rufai said.
NIWA subsequently gave a different account. Its Sokoto Area Manager, Abdulkadir Yusuf, told the News Agency of Nigeria, as reported by Leadership, that the boat was carrying about 82 people, including a community leader, and that 11 people had survived.
Nasiru Adamu, the lawmaker representing Goronyo Constituency in the Sokoto State House of Assembly, also gave a different survivor figure, saying 16 people were rescued.
The discrepancies have made it difficult to determine how many passengers remain unaccounted for.
Aminu Liman Bodinga, Special Adviser to Governor Ahmed Aliyu on SEMA, told Vanguard that emergency agencies were working to determine the actual number of people who boarded the boat.
He said establishing the passenger count was critical to the continuing search operation.
The boat operator and the village head were among those who survived, according to Mr Bodinga.
The village head of Gorau, Aliyu Na-Batsami, told Daily Trust that more than 70 people were aboard the boat, most of them farmers travelling to their farms.
He said children were also among the passengers, most of them girls.
Mr Na-Batsami said the boat capsized in the middle of the waterway and that he managed to stay afloat by holding onto a sack until rescuers reached him.
The newspaper reported that one household lost 11 children in the accident.
Other residents also reported losing several members of their families.
The passengers were predominantly farmers, farm workers, women and children travelling to rice farms across the waterway.
The exact cause of the accident has yet to be formally established.
Mr Adamu, the state lawmaker, attributed the accident to overloading.
He said the boat operator told him that he had tried to stop passengers from overcrowding the vessel, but they refused to heed his warning.
Another resident involved in the rescue operation told Daily Trust that the boat developed a fault shortly after leaving the shore before capsizing.
The accounts have not been independently established as the cause of the accident.
Following the disaster, NIWA Governing Board Chairman Mukhtar Shagari called for stricter adherence to waterway safety measures.
