Lagos State Waterways Schedules 2026

The Lagos State Waterways Authority — LASWA — is the government body that regulates water transport in Lagos. It does not operate ferries.

What it actually does

LASWA was established by the Lagos State Waterways Authority Act of 2008, charged with coordinating the reforms needed for long-term growth of water transport in the state. In practice that means granting ferry licences and awarding terminal concessions to private operators — its site carries an "apply as a boat operator" route. Its stated mission is to regulate and promote the use of Lagos inland waterways.

The infrastructure it owns

The authority publishes its full inventory, and the construction types tell you how uneven the network still is. Five commissioned state terminals: Elegbata/Ebute Ero, Ikorodu and Badore in concrete, Ebute Ojo and Five Cowries at Falomo floating.

Below them sit fourteen state jetties — Sagbokoji, Ijede, Yafin, Agboyi Ketu, Baiyeku, Liverpool, Takwa Bay, Langbasa, Oke Ira Nla at Ajah, Badore East and both Ibeshe landings at Ikorodu. Some are concrete, Ijegun Egba is floating and has its own car park, and Ipakodo 2 and Langbasa are still wooden. A further set of public landings completes the network.

Why the waterways matter here

Lagos is built around a lagoon system, and road congestion between the mainland and the islands is severe enough that ferries are a serious alternative rather than a novelty. The state has pursued this deliberately, including through the Omi Eko programme and a Special Adviser to the Governor on the Blue Economy.

Planning a journey

Because LASWA licenses rather than sails, the timetable and fare for any crossing come from the private operator working that route. Emergency contacts are 767 and 112.

751 departures, and not one of them on a Sunday

The scale here is larger than almost anything else on this site: our data holds 751 active departures across the network. The busiest legs — Itun Agan to Liverpool and Iyagbe to Ojo Market Waterside — carry 16 departures each, and the crossings themselves are short: five to fifteen minutes.

The day pattern is the striking part. Most routes carry a Monday-to-Saturday mask, running from 06:00 to around 19:30. This is a six-day working network, not a leisure one — short hops at high frequency across a lagoon that road traffic takes hours to circumnavigate, shutting down on Sundays because the commute does.