An Evaluative Study Of Inland Water Transport Development In Nigeria.

ABSTRACT

This is an evaluative study of Inland Waterway Transport Development in Nigeria. Three sets of 5 point Likert Scale questionnaire were crafted for the study for the following categories of respondents; National Inland Water Authority (NIWA) Staff, Ferry Operators and the Inhabitants respectively. Five research questions and five hypotheses were also formed for the study. Data collected were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean procedure and One-way Anova. The results of the study reveals the following: the extent of government commitment in the development of the inland development in Nigeria is generally low; the extent of the implementation of inland water policies by NIWA staff is also low; the extent of ferries/boat usage in the inland water transportation in Nigeria was fairly high; the extent of the impact of the NIWA activities on ferry operation in the study was also low; there were no significant differences in the extent of implementation of inland water policies by the NIWA management in the locations sampled in the study; finally, there were also no significant differences in the level of development in the inland water transport in Nigeria. Conclusively, the findings of the study collectively show that the inland water transport in Nigeria is under developed. As a result of the above findings, the following recommendations are made: There should be concerted effort to ensure that the budget made for inland water development in Nigeria is judiciously utilized; the right man power should be employed by NIWA as one of the measures to ensure that Inland Water Transport Policies are implemented; Security of life and property in the Inland Waterways should be guaranteed so that boat ferrying would be safe for the ferries, customers and goods which will in turn attract investors to the area. Finally, Research and Development Department of NIWA should form synergy with research centers so that recent developments in Inland Water transportation would easily be discovered for onward implementation.