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.
Tukur Abubakar, Head of Operations at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) office in Sokoto, said at least 52 bodies had been recovered, according to Daily Trust.
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.
Survivors recount accident
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.
NIWA seeks phase-out of wooden boats
Following the disaster, NIWA Governing Board Chairman Mukhtar Shagari called for stricter adherence to waterway safety measures.
Mr Shagari said NIWA was working towards phasing out wooden boats from Nigeria’s inland waterways as part of efforts to improve passenger safety, according to a statement reported by Vanguard.
He urged boat operators to avoid overloading, early-morning journeys when river tides are high and night travel where poor visibility increases risks.
He also called for stronger collaboration between state governments and NIWA on safety enforcement.
Previous Goronyo accident
The latest accident occurred about a year after another deadly boat mishap in the same local government area.
On 17 August 2025, a canoe carrying more than 50 passengers capsized around Kojiyo village while travelling to Goronyo Market.
Following search and rescue operations, the Sokoto State Government said four passengers died, 41 were rescued, and five remained missing.
The government also announced after the accident that it had procured 20 motorised boats and life jackets for riverine communities, saying two of the boats had been allocated to Goronyo Local Government Area.
In September 2025, the state government formally announced the distribution of 20 motorised boats and 2,000 life jackets to communities dependent on water transportation.
NEMA said Goronyo was among 10 local government areas selected to benefit from the intervention and that boat operators had been trained before the equipment was distributed.
Governor Aliyu warned operators against overloading and directed the chairpersons of the beneficiary local governments to ensure that the boats were properly maintained and secured.
However, Mr Adamu told Daily Trust that following the latest accident, the Gorau community had not received the motorised boats and life jackets distributed by the state government.
It was not immediately clear where the two motorised boats earlier said by the state government to have been allocated to Goronyo were deployed within the local government area, or whether any life jackets from the intervention were assigned to the Gorau crossing point.
Residents have renewed calls for a safer means of crossing the waterway, including the construction of a bridge, noting that farmers regularly cross it to reach their farmland.