Senate passes act establishing multimodal accident investigation agency
The Senate on Tuesday passed the bill for the Act to provide for the establishment of the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB), a multimodal accident investigation agency, coming about a month after the House of Representatives passed the same bill.
When assented to by the president, this will see to the transformation of the Accident Investigation Bureau, Nigeria (AIB-N) into a multimodal safety investigation agency adding rail and maritime to aircraft accident investigation.
Breaking the news to the staff of AIB-N in Abuja, Akin Olateru, the commissioner and chief executive officer of AIB said: “It is with great pleasure that I send you all hearty congratulations and announce that our new bill before the National Assembly has been passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives. We give all the glory to Almighty God. This is a bright new beginning for AIB.”
The establishment of the NSIB will put Nigeria at the top in Africa as regards transportation accident investigation with the country becoming the first to have such agency in the continent.
According to Olateru, who thanked the minister of aviation, Hadi Sirika for his support, this is a reward for the diligence and commitment of the staff of the agency.
Enlarging the operations of AIB into a multimodal agency was one of the cardinal programmes of Akin Olateru when he assumed office as the fourth commissioner/CEO of AIB in 2017.
With the strong backing of Sirika, the initiative got the federal executive council approval and passed through the ministry of justice before landing at the National Assembly. The National Assembly conducted open hearings where all stakeholders made their inputs.
Olateru stated that the establishment of the NSIB is a good development and will be of great benefit to Nigerians as it would provide adequate legal and institutional framework for the regulation and administration of safety transportation occurrences in Nigeria.
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“The NSIB would reinforce safety in all modes of transportation in Nigeria through distinctive, efficient, and effective investigations of accidents and serious incidents involving any of the modes of transportation within Nigeria or anywhere else Nigeria’s interest is affected,” he said.
“The NSIB will determine the probable causes of accidents and serious incident occurrences in transportation and publish safety recommendations to operators, regulators, and others, which would help prevent the recurring of similar occurrences, therefore, improving the safety of transportation in Nigeria.”
AIB-N through its investigations, reports, and safety recommendations has improved the safety of air travel in the country, with the industry recording only one fatal occurrence since 2015.
Reacting to the news of the passage of the bill, Charles Erhue, the commissioner of Banjul Accord Group Accident Investigation Agency (BAGAIA), said “this is a great feat to the AIB family and to the Banjul Accord Group (BAG) region.
I wish to congratulate the commissioner and entire AIB management team with the support of every staff who has committed time and resources in one way or the other to make this a huge success.”