The Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, yesterday, named the Abuja-Lokoja, Benin-Ore, Lagos-Ibadan and the Abuja-Kaduna roads as most volatile to road accidents in the country.
Speaking at a capacity workshop put together for regulatory risk management practitioners in north-central states by Shell petroleum in Abuja, the Corps Marshal, Osita Chidoka, represented by the Deputy Corps Marshal, Denis Garba Terrang said the roads have recorded the highest number of road accidents, injuries and crash related fatalities in Nigeria.
He said, “Of recent, every Tuesday we sit down and look at the number of accidents that took place, the number of people that died and those that got injured and we discovered that there is a pattern, there are specific roads where these accidents take place, for example, Abuja-Lokoja road, Abuja-Kaduna road, Benin-Ore and Lagos-Ibadan road.”
He however, noted that due to the concentration of more resources to “face those places squarely; you look at the rate of road crash going down because of the concentration of safety resources in those areas.”
*Bad road
Terrang said the FRSC’s target is to reduce road traffic crash rate by 20 per cent and the number of fatality by 30 per cent this year, adding that the weekly number of fatalities resulting from road crashes was staggering. While informing that the World Bank donated 12 ambulances fully equipped with requirement for rescue to the FRSC last month, he said the FRSC is partnering with different organisations to have road side clinics equipped with paramedic that assists in the evacuation and rescue of crash victims.
The Country Chair of Shell company in Nigeria, Mutiu Sumonu, who spoke through the Manager, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE), Amadi Amadi, said statistics worldwide has shown that about 1.2 million people die from road accidents yearly and about 50 million injuries with the highest number being recorded in Africa.
“We think that something needs to be done, hence we are putting this together to improve the capacity of those tasked with managing road safety in Nigeria,”
Amadi said.
He said similar workshop has been done in South-South, South-East and South-West, adding that Shell is partnering with government to support some of the facilities that can hasten the recovery process for those injured when a road accident occurs.
On his part, the Deputy Commandant of the Civil Defence Corps, Michael Odeniran, harped on the need for synergy on the road safety work. He also indicted some law enforcement officers of sabotaging government’s effort at reducing road crashes by compromising their responsibilities for personal gratification.
“While government has good road safety intentions, officers can sometimes be the problem. Some compromise their responsibility. I am challenging all of us, let us do our work well. We should not overlook drunk drivers because they are responsible for the lives of their passengers, so we shouldn’t overlook them. Let us all rise up as agencies charged with protecting Nigerians to make sure there is safety on our roads,” Odeniran said.
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