Nigeria records 5,400 deaths in 12,077 road crashes in 2015

The Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, says a total of

12, 077 road crashes were recorded across the country in

2015, the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports.

The FRSC Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, disclosed this in

Uyo on Wednesday while addressing a public enlightenment

forum organised for transport stakeholders at old Akwa

Transport Corporation (AKTC) park.

Mr. Oyeyemi was represented at the event by the Assistant

Corps Marshal in charge of Policy, Research and Statistics,

Michael Olagunju.

He said out of 12,077 road crashes recorded last year, 5,400

people representing 65 per cent of those involved in the

crashes lost their lives.

Mr. Oyeyemi said the commission would not go back on the

October1 deadline for the implementation of speed limiting

device nationwide as approved President Muhammadu Buhari.

The corps marshal regretted that most of the crashes would

have been avoided if appropriate safety measures were

adopted by the motorists while plying the highways.

He described the statistics on road crashes as staggering and

reiterated that the speed limiting device would save Nigerians

the embarrassment on the highways.

“Most of the road crashes are preventable, if we are able to

bring down the speed, we will be saving a lot of lives on our

highways,” Mr. Oyeyemi said.

In his remarks, the State Transport Commissioner, Godwin

Ntukude, expressed satisfaction with the introduction of the

speed limiting device.

Mr. Ntukude called for a technical session with all

stakeholders to enlighten them on the workability of the

device.

“There is no policy introduced by government that will not have

a positive effect on lives of the people.

“Let us have technical session with experts to ascertain

whether it can be installed on an expired (Tokunbo) vehicle or

not.

“It is important for us to know this so that the good policy

would not work otherwise negatively,” Mr. Ntukude said.

Earlier, the FRSC Public Relations Officer, Godgift Uwen, said

that the introduction of speed limiting device would make

Nigeria join the league of nations like Japan, Australia and

Sweden.