Roughly 1,991 lives were lost to road accidents within four years in Lagos, according to the Lagos State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr. Hyginus Omeje. He spoke at the closing ceremony of an event to mark the just concluded United Nations World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Crash Victims in Lagos metropolis tagged ‘Speed Kills, Design Out Speeding’. Omeje said in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, the command recorded 4,539, 4,700, 4,817 and 3,505 crashes, involving the deaths of 534, 547, 516 and 394 people during the respective years. “… in Nigeria, we have not given safety on our roads a pride of place, all roads users must be careful and avoid speeding”, he said. Last year alone, the Commission said more than 1,000 Nigerians died in road crashes between March and September, mostly because of over-speeding which accounted for 65 per cent of the deaths. Other reports credited to the FRSC say 1.3 million people die annually across the world through road accidents; and that 80 per cent of the casualties are from middle and low income countries like Nigeria.
Nigeria, over the years, has not achieved significant improvement in its record of fatal road crashes. A number of causative factors have likewise been reiterated as responsible, the foremost being the poor and decrepit state of urban and inter-state highways. But while we concede that this is a major contributing factor, it doesn’t answer all the pertinent questions as to why the carnage was even higher when the ultra-modern Lagos-Benin; Lagos-Ibadan and the Abuja-Kaduna- Kano etc. expressways were newly built and commissioned.
It appears the bitter truth remains that due to elements of cultural belief or sheer peer indoctrination, a lot of Nigerians fatalistically settle for the notion that ‘accidents are bound to happen’, even when they can be avoided if the average driver applies the requisite caution while on the wheels. Accidents are mostly caused by excessive speeding, driving when drunk, the use of narcotics such as marijuana and amphetamines, which are very popular among trailer drivers who wish to cover thousands of kilometers at a go without sleeping or resting enough before embarking on long journeys. The issue of night travelling is also a major cause of road accidents, as the drivers reputed for same claim they over-speed to avoid forced stoppage by criminals. At such high speed, it is one slip into a crater or even pothole and both the driver and passengers are history!
The effort to rein in the Nigerian culture of reckless and undisciplined driving is compounded by the human handicap placed in the way of the FRSC, which has recently assumed a litigatory dimension. As we write, there are about 11 of such cases at various stages of their unfolding. Eventually, the Supreme Court may have to intervene.
Since its inception in 1988, the FRSC has gone through its thick and thin. The Commission’s task has been arduous, no doubt; what with 204,000 kilometers of road network; hundreds of thousands of vehicles and an estimated 65 million road users to regulate in the country’s 36 divergent states and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The job has not only been to man the highways and even inner cities, but to remonstrate, penalize and educate vehicle owners and operators. They have also been creating, implementing and fine-tuning new systems such as vehicle number plates licencing, and perfecting the grund norms of traffic management, like hands-free telephony and seat belt usage. Perhaps, a tacit endorsement of the Federal Government’s appreciation of the Commission’s efforts was demonstrated by the recent promotion of the Commission’s former boss, Mr. Osita Chidoka, to the position of minister.
Our thinking, however, is that the FRSC can still do more. Despite being a federal parastatal, the state sector commanders should emulate the Lagos State arm and seek to work in synergy with other agencies of state, like the police, Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), and others to further enhance safety on the nation’s roads. The Commission should also not joke with maintaining high staff discipline. Jointly, the aforementioned agencies should not lose focus. We believe that with all hands – political, clerical, traditional and pedagogical – on deck, the wanton and needless carnage on Nigerian roads can be drastically reduced.
