Drowning caused by negligence not ‘Yemoja’, NIWA tells Ogun residents

The National Inland Waterways Authority, NIWA, has asserted that drownings connected waterways are not caused by Yemoja, a h2o deity, but by negligence and the abandonment of information protocols.

DAILY POST reports that Yemọja is simply a large h2o deity, parent goddess and orisha successful the Yoruba region, revered arsenic the parent of each different orishas and the protector of life, women and children.

The Area Manager, NIWA Abeokuta Area Office, covering Ogun and Oyo States, Engr. Ipinmoroti Segun, stated this connected Thursday during a sensitisation run astatine the 2026 Annual Yemoja Festival held astatine the River Jetty, Ago Ika, Abeokuta.

Ipinmoroti said that successful the past, deaths connected the h2o were wrongly attributed to spiritual forces, whereas investigations showed that they were caused by nonaccomplishment to usage beingness jackets, nighttime sailing and operating nether the power of alcohol.

“In the past, radical person been dying, but cipher took cognisance. They would accidental the idiosyncratic was claimed by Yemoja. Now we recognize that Yemoja is not consuming people. It is owed to negligence and abandonment of information protocols,” helium said.

He said the sensitisation, themed “Sensitisation connected Sustainable Cultural Heritage and Safety Protocols connected Inland Waterways,” was orga...