By Amos Aar
Barely weeks after communities around River Buruku were still grappling with memories of past tragedies, another boat mishap has again plunged Benue State into mourning.
This time, six lives were lost when a boat capsized on the River Buruku, reviving painful questions that have lingered for more than a decade: why do people keep dying on this river, and why has the long-promised bridge remained a mirage?
River Buruku has earned an unenviable reputation. Once celebrated as a recreational spot and a critical crossing point linking communities in Buruku and Logo Local Government Areas, it has gradually become a recurring scene of avoidable deaths.
From festive drownings to tragic commuter accidents, the river has continued to claim lives with alarming regularity.
A recent report by National Record captured the grim pattern succinctly, describing how Christmas festivities around the river have become ritualistic preludes to mourning.
In December 2013, a Boxing Day outing turned catastrophic when a boat conveying fun-seekers capsized, leaving at least 17 people dead after days of body recovery.
Eight years later, in December 2021, three more bodies were recovered following Christmas beaching activities, despite prior warnings by authorities and community leaders.
The cycle has hardly been broken. Social media reports during subsequent Christmas seasons continued to tell the same story: drowning, recovery, grief, silence.
Then came another devastating incident shortly after the 2025 Christmas celebrations, when six students of a secondary school in Gboko reportedly lost their lives while returning to school after the holidays as their boat capsized on the river.
For residents, the tragedy is no longer shocking; it is depressingly familiar.
While superstition and rumours of spiritual forces often trail such incidents, a prominent traditional ruler near the river has dismissed such explanations, insisting that the causes are disturbingly simple and preventable.
The kindred head (Ortar) of Mbajor, Chief Akaangee Hembaor, who lives close to one of the crossing points of River Buruku, says recklessness, alcohol abuse and faulty boats are at the heart of the recurring deaths.
“Most times it is mismanagement that leads to those accidents. Even the mishap that occurred recently, the boat was an old faulty one. So, there is no reason to attribute it to witches and wizards or Mammy water. It is a wooden boat, not iron.
So once there is a hole on it, water can penetrate to fill it and it will definitely sink”, Chief Akaangee discloses in an interview with our reporter.
His words puncture the myths that often distract from accountability. According to him, many of the festive drownings are linked to excessive alcohol consumption and a dangerous disregard for the river’s depth and currents.
“For those who died in the course of beaching, many of them do take excessive alcohol before they start swimming and they insist going to the deepest points of the river,” he explained, adding that “the other year, many of them died like that and they were very many in the boat.”
Chief Akaangee urged boat operators to repair faulty vessels and warned swimmers against alcohol-fuelled bravado, but his comments also expose a deeper problem: a system that leaves safety to chance.
River Buruku is not just a recreational site; it is a vital transport route for students, traders and farmers moving between communities.
Yet, there are no functional safety patrols, no enforcement of passenger limits, no compulsory life jackets and no structured regulation of boat operations.
During festive periods, the risks multiply as crowds swell, alcohol flows freely and warnings are ignored. In this context, each death is not an accident in the true sense of the word; it is the outcome of neglect.
At the centre of public frustration is the ongoing multi-billion-naira bridge proposed to span River Buruku. For residents like James Tyodugh, a functional bridge would “drastically reduce reliance on unsafe boats,” especially for daily commuting and school transportation, calling on the federal government to expedite the construction of the bridge. Each new tragedy has renewed calls for the project, yet progress remains very slow.
Families of victims are left with permanent scars. Children lose parents, parents bury children, and communities mourn individuals whose deaths could have been avoided.
For them, statistics mean little; what matters is the absence at the dinner table and the silence where laughter once lived.
Beyond mourning, River Buruku stands as a damning symbol of governance failure. The dangers are well known. The causes have been clearly identified by community leaders themselves. Yet, the response has remained reactive-mourning after deaths instead of preventing them.
As Chief Akaangee’s blunt assessment shows, the river is not cursed. It is unsafe because it has been allowed to remain unsafe.
Until the construction of the long-awaited bridge is expedited and completed, boat operations are properly regulated, and sustained public education and enforcement are introduced, River Buruku will continue to claim lives. Each new mishap will merely add another paragraph to a tragic story Benue State has read for far too long.
The question now is no longer whether the deaths will continue, but whether government action will finally arrive before the next boat capsizes.
