One
of the things I have had to do in recent times was to renew my driver’s
licence. This took me to the headquarters of the Federal Road Safety Corps
(FRSC) in Abuja. The procedure requires the applicant’s presence: forms to be
filled, fees to be paid, fingerprinting to be done, and so, that was how I
found myself in the expansive and impressive premises of the FRSC
Headquarters. It turned to be a
memorable experience.
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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