The Nigeria Road Safety Strategy: A New Dawn
Last week Thursday was perhaps my best Thursday since I ported from the media to join the services of the Federal Road Safety Corps. It is also a day I believe the average operatives of the Federal Road Safety Corps will forever cherish because of its significance in our desire to make real the onerous task of fulfilling the Corps mandate to rid our roads of avoidable deaths. If you think the 1988 move setting up the FRSC was novel, wait until the whole significance of last Thursday inauguration of the National Road Safety Advisory Council unravels because it demonstrates the highest political will by government to say enough deaths.
From the moment the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo inaugurated the National Road Safety Advisory Council under his chairmanship, with 6 governors each representing each of the geopolitical zones of the country and some ministers as well as professional bodies as members, to the late night media appearance by my boss,the Corps Marshal of the Corps, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA)to shed more light, I have been reeling with excitement. In fact, I symbolically rolled the red carpets, beat the African drums and solitarily clicked a glass of wine over what any concerned follower of road safety in Nigeria since the FRSC was birthed in 1988 would regard as a milestone that deserves appreciation of all Nigerians to the government and also the support needed to make the goals realised.
Please permit me to take you back memory lane to 1988 when the then Military President, General Ibrahim Gbadamasi, travelled a path that was alien to Africa, the developing climes and even some countries in the developed WORLD when he birthed the Federal Road Safety Corps to tackle the scourge of crashes and avoidable deaths which as at that time had placed Nigeria tops in terms of road crashes alongside Ethiopia. Although we never realized the novelty in that move, everything about the establishment of the Corps as couched in the enabling decrees singled out the agency as a lead agency in traffic management and road safety administration. Despite the hiccups with respect to its existence and relevance, it took years before the World Bank after a thorough study of its mandates and activities adjudged the Corps as the model lead agency in Africa and the developed world.
What then is a lead Agency and what role do lead Agencies play?Before I dwell on this ,please allow me to first paint the picture of what the World Health Organizations (WHO)says about road fatalities in sub-Saharan Africa which it says is projected to increase by 112%, from approximately 243,000 in 2015 to 514,000 in 2030. This increase is said to be a far greater percentage increase than any other region of the world, and is in stark contrast to the projected reduction in fatalities in Europe, Central Asia , East Asia and the Pacific.
The Reports shows that road fatalities per capita are projected to increase by 51% over the period 2015-2030, at the same time fatalities per capita is projected to decline for both HIV/ AIDS (-18%) and malaria (-24%). Road fatalities it further notes are projected to overtake the number of malaria fatalities in the Africa during this period. To cause a shift from this global tragedy, WHO recommends a system based intervention which gives priority to institutional management and capacity issues. According to WHO, “a key factor in tackling the growing road traffic injury burden is the creation of institutional capacity across a range of interlinking sectors, backed by both strong political commitment and adequate and sustainable resources”.
What is making me stand tall is the historic political will demonstrated by government last Thursday. You can describe it as the icing of 29years effort by government because it keys into the template for best global practices and for me it is a new dawn for road safety in Nigeria. This best template is clearly spelt out in the six recommendations in the report which directly addresses institutional management issues in the next decade: top among the recommendations is the need for a lead agency which the Nigerian government proactively did in 1988 when it gave birth to the establishment of the Federal Road Safety Corps as the lead agency of traffic management and road safety administration. Following that is the need to assess the problem, policies and institutional settings relating to road traffic injury and the capacity for road traffic injury prevention in each country and thirdly prepare a national road safety strategy and plan of action.