Incessant road accidents: Time to stop these preventable deaths

Road accidents remain one of the leading causes of death among Nigerians in their most productive years, yet the scourge continues to receive little or no serious attention from those in authority. Every week, lives are cut short and families thrown into grief as crashes claim breadwinners, students, professionals, and countless road users. The causes […]

Road accidents remain one of the leading causes of death among Nigerians in their most productive years, yet the scourge continues to receive little or no serious attention from those in authority. Every week, lives are cut short and families thrown into grief as crashes claim breadwinners, students, professionals, and countless road users.

The causes are glaring and all too familiar. Bad roads across the nation, reckless behaviour by drivers, deliberate disobedience to traffic rules, poor vehicle maintenance, and the menace of heavy-duty trucks have combined to make our roads unsafe. Petroleum tanker explosions and incessant truck accidents, in particular, have left hundreds dead and many more permanently scarred. Despite this tragic trend, meaningful intervention from government remains grossly inadequate.

The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), saddled with the responsibility of curbing road carnage, cannot do it alone. The agency has been overstretched for years, lacking both adequate manpower and the necessary political backing to enforce laws effectively. Worse still, the FRSC does not currently have a presence in all 774 Local Government Areas of the federation, a gap that hampers its ability to enforce traffic rules and respond swiftly to emergencies in remote areas.

To turn the tide, the FRSC must be strengthened. This means increased funding, expanded coverage across all LGAs, and more importantly, the legal and political power to arrest and prosecute reckless drivers, no matter whose ox is gored. Without this, killer drivers will continue to act with impunity, and innocent Nigerians will keep paying with their lives.

It is baffling that while enormous attention and resources are committed to ensuring aviation safety, road safety, used daily by millions of Nigerians, remains neglected. Road accidents, like plane crashes, are no respecter of persons. If strict safety measures can be enforced in the aviation sector, why not on our roads where fatalities are far higher?

State governments also have a role to play. Those that are yet to establish their own road traffic management agencies must do so urgently to complement the work of the FRSC. Joint efforts between the federal and state governments, backed by adequate resources, logistics, and political will, are essential to saving lives.

Every life lost on our highways is preventable. It is time for government at all levels to stop paying lip service and rise to the challenge.

Nigeria cannot continue to waste its citizens, the very people that drive its economy on account of negligence and weak enforcement.
The message is simple: road accidents can be prevented. The government must act now, and act decisively.

 

Tochukwu Jimo Obi can be reached via [email protected]