This is because the bureau has decided to strengthen its partnerships with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) and the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on methods to improve safety in the rail and road sector.
To further strengthen the cooperation between the organizations, the agencies have decided to form a committee to work on the Memorandum of Understanding.
Director-General of NSIB, Akin Olateru, stated yesterday during courtesy visits to the two organizations in Lagos that their investigators had started looking into the causes and contributing factors of the railway and bus disaster in Lagos on March 9, 2023.
He clarified that the report’s public release will also contain safety advice for all parties on how a repeat may be prevented in the future.
Addressing at LASEMA, Olateru expressed regret for the disaster, which resulted in the deaths of ten people, and gave the Lagos State Government assurance that its investigators would conduct a comprehensive investigation and produce safety recommendations.
He clarified, however, that it does not place responsibility on any particular party and instead offers safety advice on how future incidents of this nature might be avoided.
He clarified that the NSIB has 45 thoroughly trained investigators who are working on the significant occurrences and accidents involving rail and maritime transportation.
“We have 45 well-trained investigators who are well-trained in the United States, Singapore Academy and others. So we focus on what we do best. It takes time to carry out investigations.”
“But, for this, I don’t think it will take time because some of our investigators have already been trained on train and maritime investigation.”
“All the accidents and serious incidents that we have investigated in the past, we made them public. There is no hiding of anything, but the thing is we don’t blame anyone. We have the causal and contributory factors that would tell you why the accident happened.”
The Director-General also wanted NSIB and LASEMA to work together on capacity building, training, and idea sharing.
During the NRC, Olateru also reaffirmed that the accident report will be released to the public shortly and said that the new NSIB Act 2022 had gone through the proper procedures before being approved by President Muhammadu Buhari and adopted.
He clarified that the goal of the new Act was to reduce all types of traffic accidents in the nation and increase the number of lives saved.
He stated: “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.”
Fidet Okhiria, the managing director of NRC, responded by expressing his excitement about working with NSIB.
He explained that the bureau’s addition will increase the protection of people and property while also preventing recurrence.
Yet, he asserted that the arrival of the NSIB to look into railway accidents would not pose a danger to the organization and would instead help the nation’s rail infrastructure.
Earlier in his presentation, Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, Permanent Secretary of LASEMA, displayed several slides on the train-bus disaster and how his organization was able to reduce the number of casualties.
He explained that because the Lagos State Government had already developed many layers of information and an action plan, LASEMA, like in the past, was quick, effective, and efficient in its response to the train-bus incident.
He said that within 10 minutes, company representatives were at the accident site and that rescue efforts got under way right away.
In order to further improve safety in the industry, he sought partnership with NSIB in the areas of training and equipment purchase.
