By Kayode Olagunju
I just took another look at the picture of the then Governor Bola Tinubu at the helm of affairs in Lagos proudly donning the uniforms of Special Marshals, the volunteer arm of the Federal Road Safety Corps. The salute and smiles were indicative of his love for road safety, preservation of lives and property. He proudly affirmed that, as I had the privilege of putting that service outfits on him as the then Lagos Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps. I can attest to his various transport and road safety initiatives. He had embarked on massive transport infrastructural developments in Lagos. Roads were constructed while many others were rehabilitated. Other transport modes were also not neglected. Traffic management were of concern to him and he set up a Committee of experts and Stakeholders including FRSC to find solution to the chaotic traffic situation, affecting economic fortunes of the City. This gave birth to the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA). Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) and Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS) came into existence based on his positive conviction. We all, I mean all Stakeholders at all levels of Governance, collaborated and Lagos benefited from the visionary leadership of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in ensuring sanctity of lives.
I know his passion for effective transport system and road safety in particular as I had the benefit of one on one engagements with him. One of such was a surmon through his then Chief Security Officer, now the Inspector General of Police, after I had left Lagos. He knew the challenges in all the nooks and crannies of the state.
Always seeking solution assuring you no challenge was insurmontable. Once the idea was good, Asiwaju would be ready to go further than the expectations as the will power was never lacking.
President Tinubu has once again demonstrated his passion for road infrastructure development.
The Minister of Works, Engineer David Umahi and the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike have represented the administration well in this regard. They have performed well and the changes are positive. The roads they are constructing are of quality and with the safety components not neglected.
However, I need to state here that good roads don’t necessarily guarantee road safety. We need to ponder why we record more crashes and deaths on good roads than on bad ones. Simple. Road users tend to put caution into the winds while on good roads.
They engage in excessive speeding and have total disregard to safety rules and guidelines. When the Lagos – Ibadan expressway was commissioned in August 1978, after four years of construction, words like ‘Sina Bole’, meaning speed on, ‘Ona Marose’ literally meaning, don’t slow down, came to our local consciousness in describing the new expressways.
The orientation here is, once the road is good, just speed on. I am not advocating that we should not have good roads in order to have low crashes, but rather, we should embark on road safety administration as we improve the roads. We should tackle our collective dangerous mentality that discourages restrictions and cautions while using good roads.
About 1.25 million people in the world die each year from road traffic crashes (RTC). Approximately 50 million others get injured annually, with some in vegetative state. RTCs also impose a serious financial burden on nations costing them an average of 3 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
In Nigeria, RTC claimed 396,083 lives on our roads between 1960, our year of independence and 2024. A total of 1,481,527 Persons were injured, hence 1,842,937 casualties. In order to understand the grave situation better, the giant MKO Abiola Stadium, our national stadium is 60,491 capacity while the Emirate Stadium of Arsenal in London has 60,704 capacity. So, visualize our losing 6 times of full capacity of the stadia and more than 30 times of such as our casualties since independence. Disastrous I believe, but that is the reality. Many lives are lost on our roads daily.
The Federal Road Safety Commission came on board in February 1988. The Agency saddled with the basic responsibilities of reducing RTC, educate road users, rescue victims of RTC, clear the road of obstructions and come with strategies to make our roads safer and entrench road safety culture in Nigeria has done well. It has even attracted international recognitions as a model for other nations especially for developing and middle income nations where RTCs remain high.
A comparison between the last 20 years before the establishment of FRSC and the last 20 years of its activities justifies the acclaims. Records show that a total of 549,152 crashes occurred in the last 20 years preceding FRSC (1968-1987) as against 219,023 in the last 20 years of FRSC operations (2005-2024), which is 43% reduction. A 9.7% reduction from deaths was also recorded as the figure came down from 137,186 to 112,843. The reduction achieved despite an approximately over 100 % estimated increase in vehicle population.
Previous administrations have intervened in FRSC activities in terms of increased budget allocations, provision of special funds for additional fleets of patrol vehicles, bikes, ambulances and tow vehicles. We all know that road safety is capital intensive. An articulated tow truck now costs hundreds of million of naira. President Tinubu administration has also keyed into raising the capacity of the FRSC. There have been increased funding but Mr President, FRSC needs your further intervention what the Organization require now, your Excellency is your further support financially. It needs a special, intentional and more focused intervention especially in re-fleeting and key areas of its activities. A broken down or crashed articulated vehicle which we usualy refer to as trailer in Nigeria, on a major corridor can embarrass the nation. Those who had spent twelve hours on transit between Lokoja and Abuja, a distance of about 200km can testify to this. While the FRSC and other security personnel are trying to manage the traffic and waiting for one of the very few available articulated tow trucks to remove the obstructing truck, our highly impatient and indisciplined road users will move to the other carriageway and block the other lanes completely. Every one will then be on standstill. Yes, every one using the road. The sirens of ministers, senators, other senior government officials including senior security officials will be rendered useless. Several man hours will be lost. More lives can be lost. So, it can be seen that it is not only patrol and tow vehicles that are needed. We also need to educate the road users, a very expensive activity too. Television and radio programmes cost much, rallies and several Stakeholders fora won’t come cheap. Several handbills and posters must be printed with several online engagements. Routine budgetary provisions won’t accomodate all these.
How many commands of the Organization have life
-support ambulances, not even ambulances that are like hearse. Very few. Yet, the first one hour after a crash is critical. Over 70% of RTC deaths occur within the first one hour known as golden hour. The patrol vehicles are not suitable for conveying crash victims.
The conditions of victims could be compounded. Some may never walk again, if they managed to survive, due to mishandling. But where are the ambulances? Very few, hence they must cover long distances.
What of fuel availability? With the high costs of fueling, the patrol vehicles and ambulances movements are limited. The hospitals are far away, forcing FRSC to establish road side clinics. That ought not to be if the hospitals are not farther apart. The ambulances must be at intervening points between crash scenes and clinics/hospitals, hence again, the establishment of ambulance points, the Zebra. How many of them? Fewer than required. Incidentally, FRSC designed this like the LASAMBUS. Anyway, without being immodest, we were also involved in the origin of stationing ambulances on Lagos roads. We noted the Lagos State Government procured many ambulances, parked them in various hospitals, to be deployed for emergencies. Then as the state Sector Commander, I sought and secured an audience with the Commissioner for Health, Dr Leke Pitan, went with my then Head of Operations, Daniel Doherty and suggested to him that the ambulances should be moved and parked on the roads to bridge the gaps between the rtc victims, sick/ill people and the health facilities. The state did more than suggested. The government procured more life support ambulances where doctors could even perform operations in transit, stationed at modestly built ambulance points on the road and then created a very effective ambulance services, the LASAMBUS. The initiative at that scale I believe was the first of its kind in the country. That was visionary on the part of the government. Many lives are being saved daily. Sure, the project cost much money. Now the Corps is dealing with the whole country. How many of such ambulances / Zebra points can FRSC boast of now? The World Bank assisted with some operational logistics including ambulances, tow trucks and bikes for six designated corridors some years ago. Very few of such life support ambulances are currently available and also facing fuelling challenges. We can all imagine what happens when the Corps has to transport mass casualties. All sort of vehicles including those of other road users which are mostly not ideal for such, are deployed. People with spinal injuries are forced to sit down in cars on the way to hospitals located over 70km apart. The result of course is more preventable deaths and creating more physically challenged people.
Earlier, I brought to focus the issue of recording more crashes on good roads. The good intentions of government in creating good roads and rehabilitating the bad ones will be defeated if we continue to lose more lives on such roads. The solution apart from having road safety components like road signs and markings, lightings, help/resting areas, is meaningful and effective enforcement. The organization needs sufficient operatives, patrol vehicles, bikes, radar guns/speed cameras, breathalizers/alcolysers to detect drunk drivers, tablets for issuing tickets to offenders, apps and other technological innovations, among other operational equipment and materials. These cost a lot of money and we can not continue to pay lip service to safety issues.
I have not gone into the details of budget provisions over the years to the FRSC as these are in the public domain. One only needs to look into the capital provisions and check the number of patrol and tow vehicles and ambulances that could be added yearly to effectively cover the vast road networks in Nigeria. Check also the conditions of many of the Corps operational vehicles and the response time.
The Corps is doing well but they really need to be supported to do better. Kudos to the Corps Marshal Shehu Mohammed and his team. The intervention of the President and some other men and women of means, will aid saving more lives. Let us all lend our voices. Nobody is immune against road crashes.
Sure many readers will dismiss this clarion call, saying it is not only the FRSC that needs intervention. Yes, it is not only FRSC that needs the Presidential attention. There are many organs of government competing for the scarce resources. Mr President, let your transformative touch reach the FRSC. We don’t have to wait for the World Bank to provide another US $4 million grant to help improve road safety on six of our corridors as it happened in 2008. Mr President sir, please come to their, in fact, our aid.
Let all support the Organization, as nobody knows the next victim. It could be anybody, any of us, a close relation, just anybody. Sure you have wished that away with “God forbids”. Well, let us combine our prayers with positive actions. We don’t have to wait for the next victim. A stitch in time, saves nine
DCM Kayode OLAGUNJU, rtd., PhD, mni, FCILT, FISPON, FCAI FABE
