The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Lagos Zonal Office, has pulled down shanties on Lagos channels around Iddo waterfront to secure the area for navigation.
The development is a sequel to petitions and reports of unwholesome activities and presence of suspected pirates who hide in the shanties where they plan and launch attacks against legal occupants of waterfront facilities, including leaving behind fishing nets on the waterways to takedown boats and vessels transporting goods across the channel.
The New Lagos Zonal Manager (NIWA), Engr. Sarat Lara Braimah, who led the clearing operation, gave an order that all waterfronts and infrastructures in Lagos, where the federal government regulatory agency finds such habitations shall be pulled down.
“We want to change the narrative of engagements on our Waterways and the era when people blame NIWA for not being proactive enough is over. Until people respect constituted authority on the right of way on Lagos waters ways, we shall not let them sleep”.
She said that the federal government through NIWA would no longer tolerate the situation where miscreants pretending to be fishermen, turn waterfront ambience to slaughterhouses and operational grounds to attack innocent users and operators on the waterways.
“I think we should be seen to discharge our mandate without fear or favour and in weeks to come, we would create a clear picture of what is where and who has our mandate on such critical areas.” Engineer Sarat stated.
She disclosed that on the Ikorodu area of Lagos, a NIWA team and harvester have been deployed to clear the emerging menace of water hyacinth which is making navigation almost impossible on that axis and to provide access to boat operators and movement of vessels to the Ikorodu inland port.
