In-between the processing
of my papers, I was handed over to a young officer in the digitalized
command centre at the Headquarters, to give me a brief overview of the
operations of the FRSC.
I considered this a special privilege, but it turned
out that the FRSC opens its doors to visitors seeking information,
because just as I was stepping out of the room after almost 45 minutes
of briefing, another group of visitors including journalists, were led
into the command centre for their own briefing session. I could not fail
to notice the fact that the operations of the FRSC are highly
modernized and digitalized.
This is a sign of progress and growth because that
was not always the case. When the idea of the creation of a special unit
for road safety, separate from the Police Department, gained ground in
the 70s, this was in response to the enormous carnage on Nigerian roads.
Professor Wole Soyinka who suggested the idea to the Oyo State
Government has written about how the Ibadan-Ife road had become a death
trap for the students and lecturers at the then University of Ife. He
would later take on the leadership role of sensitizing the Nigerian
public to the evil of road rage, mobilizing volunteers to go onto the
road to check drivers, or to assist accident victims. In later years,
he became the pioneer Chairman of the Federal Road Safety Corps. In
those early days, road safety officers relied on their raw courage, and
few equipment, but they were a truly inspired group.
The need for road safety in
Nigeria cannot be overstated. Over the years, so many lives and limbs
have been lost on the roads. Today, Nigeria has a network of 204, 000
kilometres of paved and unpaved roads, with 12.76 million registered
motor vehicles and motorcycles at the ratio of 57% and 43%
respectively. Between 1960 and 2015, a total of 1,521, 601 casualties
were recorded on our roads. Road traffic cases were particularly most
serious between 1976 and 1993, with casualty figures consistently
exceeding 30, 000 per annum. Established in 1988, FRSC claims in its
annual reports that casualty figures on Nigerian roads have been on a
downward trend. This conclusion must be in terms of relative figures in
direct proportion to population. For, whereas total casualty figure as
reported was 11,299 in 1960, it was 38, 059 in 2014 and 32, 826 in
2015. In 1960 Nigeria’s population was 45.2 million; today, it is about
183.5 million, with more vehicles on the roads.
No one can question the wisdom behind the setting up
of this strategic agency and due credit must be given to the founding
fathers, the successive administrations that have built up the agency
and international organisations like the World Bank, which have provided
necessary support. In 1988, the FRSC had a staff strength of just about
300, today it has over 19, 000 workers on its payroll, and it is able
to make its presence felt on all Nigerian roads. It is better equipped;
its staff are better motivated, and it has attracted a large number of
volunteers, also known as Special Marshals who at critical moments step
in to act as traffic control officials. According to the FRSC, deaths on
Nigerian roads per 100, 000 was 9.0 in 1990; over the next 15 years,
this was reduced to 3.62.
Whereas a total number of 8, 154 persons were killed
on Nigerian roads in 1990, the number had reduced to 5, 044 in 2015. But
perhaps the biggest area of achievement has been in the fact that more
people today are apprehended for traffic offences. Between January and
June 2014, about 258, 538 traffic offenders were apprehended nationwide;
and for the same period in 2015 - 254, 203 persons. In the various
reports, the states with the highest cases of traffic offences and
fatalities are Kaduna, FCT, Ogun, Kogi, Oyo, Nasarawa, and Edo in that
order while the states with the least incidents are Borno, Bayelsa,
Yobe, Ekiti, Taraba, Abia, and Akwa Ibom.
It is refreshing that over the years the FRSC has
been able to generate such significant data on road safety and
fatalities in Nigeria. When I visited the control centre, many uniformed
officers were busy behind telephones and computers, receiving
information from the public and satellite command centres across
Nigeria. Two large screens in the room provided real live indication of
accident cases in all the six traffic corridors into which the country
has been divided. I was told, and a live demonstration was used to
illustrate the claim, that once there is a reported accident in any part
of the country, the information is relayed to the nearest FRSC Command
for immediate action, all the way up to the National Headquarters which
monitors the dispatch of the nearest FRSC patrol team in that corridor
on a rescue mission. The officer told me that the FRSC has the capacity
to get to the scene of any road accident within minutes, because its men
are all over Nigerian roads. I didn’t expect him to say anything
otherwise. He was marketing his organization and he would of course tell
me all the good things. But I wondered: how many Nigerians know the
toll free emergency numbers to call in the event of an accident?
I completed the processing
of my driver’s licence. And when it was time to take my leave, I was
given some reading materials. A careful perusal would offer more
information: the FRSC Call centre receives on the average a total of 258
calls per month on road traffic crashes, and most of these calls are
made between June and December. It is as if Nigerians get more reckless
on the roads as the year comes to an end. Then the vehicles mostly
involved in road crashes are cars, followed by motorcycles, minibuses
and trucks, while the principal causes are over-speeding, loss of
control and dangerous driving.
On the whole, a lot still needs to be done to curtail
road traffic crashes in Nigeria and to check the menace of dangerous
driving; the area of challenge is in deepening the prevention strategies
of the FRSC and similar organisations that have been set up by state
governments such as LASTMA in Lagos and TRACE in Ogun state. A team of
Road Safety experts from Nigeria are scheduled to proceed on a two-year
deployment to Sierra Leone, which is encouraging, but before we begin to
do Father Christmas across Africa with what has been achieved so far,
we must never lose sight of the fact that the quoted statistics of
persons killed or injured on Nigerian roads is not just cold data, but
human lives. Nigerian motorists need to be constantly reminded that they
cannot be allowed to either commit suicide or kill others.
It is certainly not
surprising that over-speeding is the major cause of accidents on our
roads. The FRSC and similar organisations at the state level must insist
on the observance of speed limits and impose the stiffest penalties on
offenders. It is always very scary driving on any road in Nigeria. Most
of our motorists, commercial or private, behave as if the best way to
handle a vehicle is to exhaust the speedometer. Speed bumps on inner
city roads have made little or no difference. Even when persons are not
driving under the influence, they just like to speed. Each time I see
any major road being dualized, I immediately think in terms of the
number of lives that will be claimed by the road once it is completed.
Every person behind the wheels on our roads is a potential Formula One
participant.
The commercial drivers are worse. They drive
dangerously and lose control, because in any case, they are half of the
time, completely drunk. Every motor park has a nearby section where
alcohol is openly sold. In between trips, the drivers worship at the paraga and ogogoro shrine,
and get thoroughly inebriated before they jump behind the wheels. State
governments and the FRSC must liaise with the Nigerian Union of Road
Transport Workers (NURTW) and the Road Transport Employers Association
of Nigeria (RTEAN) to enforce the ban on the sale of alcohol at motor
parks across the country; pro-active steps should also be taken to check
drunk driving. In some other parts of the world, motorists are
routinely stopped and asked to take a breath or sobriety test. We need
that here.
Nigerians like to break the law, or test it. When the
compulsory use of seat belts was introduced, it was quite a battle
getting people to comply. In the same manner, they may resist the
observance of speed limits, but this must be strictly enforced. Loss of
control while driving, is caused not only by drunkenness, but also the
abuse of cell phones. The way some people treat cell phones like a toy
is unbelievable. Even while driving, they use one hand to hold a phone;
the other hand is on the steering, while their mouth is engaged in
animated conversation and their ears in a listening mode. Engaged in
such a delicate task as driving, they are nevertheless distracted. I
have seen many suicidal drivers on our highways, chatting on phone and
going at top speed. This must be addressed.
The various FRSC reports didn’t dwell much on the
roadworthiness of vehicles on Nigerian roads. Half of the vehicles out
there are imported, used vehicles with broken down parts and bad tyres.
Nigerian motorists are not likely to change tyres until the tyres burst,
and of course, very few buy new tyres. Roadworthiness checks must not
be voluntary or optional but compulsory. The roads are also bad. Bad
roads don’t make for safe driving. And to worsen it all: many motorists
don’t bother to go to driving schools or take driving tests, and they
have no driver’s license. They learn to drive by accident; they have no
knowledge of road signs and traffic rules. They drive all the same and
cause accidents.
The FRSC should seek the enabling powers to ensure
that certain traffic offenders are banned for life from driving on our
roads. That is the surest way to reduce road carnage.
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