A boat mishap has claimed the lives of more than 30 farmers and left others missing in Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State.
The chairman of Mokwa LGA, Jibrin Abdullahi Muregi, confirmed the incident, saying 21 corpses had so far been recovered by local divers.
He added that efforts were ongoing to rescue the remaining victims.
Chronicle NG gathered that the incident happened on Sunday morning and that rescue officials were still at the scene.
Also, the cause of the boat mishap is still unknown, although sources around the area said the passengers were not wearing any life jackets when the accident occurred.
Officials of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, however, said they were collecting data to know the number of people involved but confirmed the incident.
The development comes days after a boat carrying some people, especially women and children, capsized in Yola, leading to the loss of lives, reports said.
Meanwhile, the state governor, Mohammed Bago, has expressed shock at the loss of lives in a boat accident that claimed scores of lives in Niger State.
He called for the use of life jackets for anybody boarding a boat in his state and condemned overcrowding in boats.
The governor made this known on Sunday in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Bologi Ibrahim, in which the governor described the accident as both terrible and undesirable.
The accident occurred in communities between the Jebba and Kainji dams in the Mokwa Local Government Area of the state, thestatement read.
Bago said, “This is quite a shocking and sorrowful situation for the people of the affected communities, and I share in their sorrow. I pray that Allah will grant the deceased Aljannah Firdausi”.
While commiserating with the families of the victims, the governor directed the Niger State Emergency Management Agency to do the needful to ameliorate the sufferings of the people.
