Follow Us on Google
There you see them in every nook and cranny of this country, defying rain, blazing heat or the merciless harmattan (depending on the season) directing traffic and putting their precious lives on the line to save us from untimely death.
Many of us who drive vehicles in this country have a barely-hidden disdain for them. We see them most often as a distraction, and put on our seat belts upon sighting them only to avoid fine or a war of words with them. Only a few of us time their appointments well, and so we are always in a hurry, running very late to events we knew a day or days before about the time they were holding. They don’t bear weapons, so we feel we can challenge them anyhow. They are the thousands of members of staff of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) that we see everyday on our roads.
While trying to guide us and ensure we do not die a painful death through auto crashes, some of us, out of disdain or recklessness or a combination of both, would hit them with our speeding cars and then run away. The FRSC must have lost hundreds of its personnel to impatient, callous drivers who feel the law meant to protect them cannot be applied on them. These are the outlaws living in their own selfish world, who feel they must be allowed to do as they want, including driving recklessly without care about the implications to themselves and to the society at large.
If one is talking about a group of people who see death with their bare eyes every day, they are these soldiers of peace, the FRSC personnel who, like magicians, appear on most accident scenes within a few minutes of accidents happening. All that matters to them is saving lives. And if we follow their simple instructions, hardly would accidents happen at all.
And while at it, they hardly think about the possibility of contracting such dreaded ailments as HIV, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases that could be transmitted through blood. And blood is a common denominator in auto crashes. More often than not, it flows in its own river of avoidable anguish and regret.
You find FRSC personnel on our roads even in areas bedevilled by insurgency. And you hardly see any of them frowning his or her face. They take deep pride and inner satisfaction in the humanitarian work they are doing. Obviously, the love for others is an integral part of their training.
In 2016, the World Economic Forum noted that road traffic deaths were the eighth leading cause of deaths for all age groups and the leading cause of death for children and young adults between the ages of five and 29. That is at the global stage. In spite of the best efforts of the FRSC, the statistics was more grim in Nigeria, where, for years, at least 5,000 compatriots lost their lives to crashes annually.
The United Nations, therefore, came up with the idea of Road Safety Strategy to curb to the barest minimum incidence of road accidents across the world. The first phase of that very effective strategy lasted from 2014 to 2018. Now we are in the second phase, ending eight years from now, specifically in 2030.
God so kind, the road safety industry in Nigeria has two God-sent patriots working round the clock to save lives by reducing incidences of road accidents to the lowest numbers. They are the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Prince Clement Agba, as well the Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi. It was Agba, the minister, who successfully tabled the request for the Federal Executive Council to approve the Nigerian Road Safety Strategy II, at its meeting two years ago, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister explained to State House correspondents that the new strategy seeks to enhance road safety management, safer roads and mobility, as well as safer road users and post-crash care.
“I presented to the Federal Executive Council for ratification, the Nigerian Road Safety Strategy II, which is an update to the maiden of the Nigerian Road Safety Strategy I that was from 2014-2018.
“The NRSS II seeks to improve on the achievement of the first edition by further reducing road accidents and fatalities and instituting a basis for sustainable road traffic crashes and fatalities reduction. It also looked at the current road safety situation, articulates the desired road safety situation, design implementation of initiatives and programmes. And these programmes and projects were estimated for implementation.
In putting together the revised document, the NRSS I performance was assessed, benchmarking was done with other regions of Africa and the world in terms of road safety statistics as road safety strategies before the documentation was put together and costed.
“This has, however, been taken through the technical working group for review and the national economic council. So, what FEC did today was to ratify the decision of the National Economic Council on NRSS II.”
In highlighting the difference between the NRSS I and II, Prince Agba explained that “there are four basic differences between NRSS I and NRSS II. One is the goal-setting. For NRSS I, the reduction in road traffic crashes was to be by 35 per cent by end of the year 2018, this has been pushed further and reduced to 50 per cent by the year 2030. In NRSS I there was just one oversight advisory council which was at federal level, the national road safety advisory council. NRSS II has now set up state roads safety advisory councils in addition to the national road safety advisory council.
“Apart from the strategic activities defined in the pillars in NRSS I, NRSS II now includes a global framework plan of action. And then the documents that have been rephrased have now increased from four to about nine.
“The pillars upon which this strategy is based are road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer road users which is very paramount, more important than the road conditions, safer vehicles and then the post-crash care,” he said.
When I was appointed a member of the Technical Working Group to work towards the attainment of the NRSS I and now its successor, the phase two, I wondered what a journalist or editor had to do with road safety matters. Oftentimes, in our bid to attend events and get news, journalists are in a rush, and ignoring one traffic rule or the other remains a possibility.
Some of us have had brushes with FRSC personnel, though we always end up as great friends and biggest partners.
I attended the first series of meetings rather reluctantly. Luckily, other patriots devoted more attention to the cause, and the NRSS 1 became a resounding success, with rate of accidents significantly reduced, though our roads infrastructure have been rather bad for ages.
Then came an in-house workshop organized penultimate week in Abuja for the Technical Working Group members. The opening ceremony was attended in person by Prince Agba, the minister, as well as Dr. Boboye, the Corp Marshal. Over the next two days, as I noted in the vote of thanks I was chosen to deliver on behalf of all the participants, new frontiers of knowledge were expanded. The choice of resource persons was excellent. All the patriots who made presentations at the workshop did so on the basis of deep knowledge of the field, and out of sheer love for humanity.
Zonal commanders and other top management team members of the FRSC attended in person. So also all Technical Working Group members selected from key stakeholder organisations and groups. It took place in a cozy five star hotel in Abuja, under full sponsorship of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a foundation of global fame that has as underlying principles, freedom, justice and solidarity for all of humanity.
The first chancellor of Germany, Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) is a co-founder of this great foundation that is working across the world to advance the cause of mankind. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation displayed an uncommon generosity of spirit and performed beyond the expectations of the participants of the workshop. I expressed the hope, in my brief speech at the event, for the foundation to engage in more sponsorships of worthy programmes like the one under reference. I am positive they will continue to touch lives in many more positive ways.
Though all of them are very busy professionals, their love for Nigeria, and for better and safer roads, is paramount in the golden hearts of the participants, who left all else to attend the workshop and enrich it with spicy contributions.
All of us who participated committed ourselves individually and collectively to deeper collaboration with the FRSC to ensure that the goals of the National Road Safety Strategy 2 are achieved. It is a long journey lasting until 2030, but in reality there is no time to waste.
(To be concluded)
