In Lagos ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE reports that though the state recorded just 16 fatalities in the last yuletide impunity still rules the road.
She left her home town Ile-Ife, in Osun State about 3.pm on Saturday, but didn’t get to her house at Agege, a Lagos suburb until 11pm last Saturday. Six of the eight hours she spent on the road was spent between Kilometre 50 and Julius Berger, a major entry point into Lagos State.
That was the lot of Mrs Olabamiji, an events planner, who had gone home to celebrate the yuletide with her aged parents and relations.
“Everything just went awry a short distance before the Redeemed Camp, a notorious choke point on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. There was gridlock for several hours and that was how it remained for about four hours till sanity was restored and we began to move on snail speed again,” the sapped woman narrated her ordeal to The Nation.
What Mrs Olabamiji witnessed was not new in Lagos which has been undergoing traffic related stress since early last month. Though the traffic was heavy on most routes in the state, there was a drastic reduction in crashes and fatalities last year. This was confirmed by the Lagos State Sector Commander, Mr Chidi Nkwonta.
Speaking in his office on Monday, ahead of the ‘Operation Zero tolerance campaign which rounds up on January 12, Nkwonta said the Corps recorded 25 percent reduction in the figure recorded in corresponding period of the previous year with 22 crashes and 16 deaths recorded through the yuletide. The highest fatality where nine people died was recorded on the Lekki-Epe Expressway, on December. That same day another person died on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, while another six persons died between December 19, 2013 and January 1, 2014. “To a large extent, there were just about five fatal crashes within the yuletide period,” he said.
He described the development as an improvement on what obtained in the corresponding period of 2012. This, he attributed to the early ‘ember months’ campaign and traffic monitoring by men of the command.
He said: “We witnessed a remarkable reduction in the number of crashes and fatalities recorded last year, compared to what obtained in the same period the previous year. This success is due to the massive enlightenment campaign and the deployment of men and logistics that saw us put four help desks along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, and two each, along Lekki-Epe Expressway and Mile 2-Badagry Expressway. This is apart from the 2,500 special marshals and 42 vehicles including tow trucks. We leveraged also on the synergy we built with sister organisations like Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which brought their upgraded mobile clinic and other smaller ambulances, while LASTMA spread their operations to the inner city roads, which we had to leave as we concentrated our efforts on the major roads that leads in and out of the state.”
He further stated that the FRSC was able to achieve minimal crashes because it began the enforcement of the campaign very early by December 15 , which ensures that his men were already on the road before the yuletide traffic began. “Our men were on the road, even on foot, calming traffic, and we went even beyond our border, handing over to the Ogun State Command after the long bridge beyond NASFAT.”
Nkwonta said part of the successes recorded by the Corps was because of the heavy deployment of enlightenment campaign and the dissemination of fliers which were circulated by his men all over the state. “We entered all nooks and crannies of this state, visiting all garages, parks, churches, mosques, schools, hospitals, filling stations and town meetings. So, people knew what is expected of them and knew what to do to avoid being in the wrong side of the law,” he said.
However, he said the FRSC could have achieved more if it had more support from road users and particularly in terms of support from corporate organisations operating in the state as road safety is a collective business and not that of the Corps alone.
He said the Command could do more if it gets more patrol vehicles and other logistics from corporate organisations. Nkwonta, however, regretted that this massive deployment of enlightenment did not translate into compliance with traffic regulations from the commercial bus (Danfo) drivers and other categories of road users.
He said the bus drivers, Keke NAPEP driver, truck drivers and even private car owners who are supposed to know better flagrantly flouted the law and were confrontational.
He listed aggression, confrontation, impunity, and sheer arrogance as some of the attitudes that cut across all classes of road users, especially the Very Important Personalities (VIP) road users, who flouts the law with impunity and exhibits arrogance on the road, intimidating his men with their position, and threatening them to get off the hook of the law.
“Beside the level of impunity exhibited by Politically Exposed Persons (PEP), another class of road users that have constituted a cog in the wheel of enforcement of regulations on the road are men in uniforms who flout the law, driving against oncoming traffic in what has come to be known as one way driving, blaring their siren and intimidating our men with gun, knives, and horse whips. Once these set of men break the traffic queue, other road users would follow suit,” he said. Nkwonta added that so much infraction was going on because road users know that men of the FRSC are not armed.
“The situation is so bad that even where our men caught any driver he would quickly mobilise his colleagues and touts and without guns and without the law enforcement officers coming to our help most of the time we are helpless and the culprit would escape arrest.” What we do in such instances,” he said, was to take their number on their vehicle number plate.
He said the Corps would continue to perfect its strategies and this has been responsible for the yearly improvement it has been recording every year. He, however, pleaded for more understanding from men in authority, important men who carry policemen as escorts who often act as if they are above the law.
“On the highway, most of these people refuse to stop. They would rather knock you down than stop and when our men see these kind of attitude, they keep their distance since we don’t have any means of defending ourselves. Unfortunately, these men would continue to flout traffic law and get away with it because of the way we are as a people. They know they are breaking the law, using their phones, yet you cannot arrest them, because they behave as though they are above the law.”
He said arresting for traffic offences is not a do or die affair. There would certainly be another opportunity to arrest an offender and it could be in an area where he might not be able to mobilise people to attack our men.
He urged motorists to resolve to use the road infrastructure more responsibly in the New Year, adding that accidents do not just occur but were results of human actions. He said drivers must understand that the road must be shared with other users and must therefore exercise more restraint and patience while on the road.
