By Chude Ojugbana
Truly, life has its special way of
producing reasonable and unreasonable coincidences or even a mix of both,
depending on how one’s lenses are polarized. Specifically, about a week
before the November, 20th commemoration of 2016 World Day of Remembrance, WDR
for road crash victims, as the Management of Nigeria’s lead agency on road
safety, Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC was busy effectively co-ordinating
activities in respect of annual memorials for road crash victims and drawing
public attention to the huge preventable road deaths, suddenly, a worrisome
headline appeared in many Nigerian newspapers “Missing Nigerian Journalist
Found Dead”. According to a major online media, Sahara Reporters, “Mr.
Adeparusi left his Kugbo, Abuja apartment on his motorcycle at around 1:00 p.m
on Sunday. After not returning home, Mr. Adeparusi’s neighbours, friends and
colleagues placed several calls to his mobile phone that went unanswered. His
employers, Naij.com noted that this was unusual, as Mr. Adeparusi was a “very
professional and clear-headed individual; not the kind of person to wander
off.” He was subsequently declared missing and found dead on Tuesday in an
apparent motorcycle accident”.
The sad narrative of the late Adeyinka
Adeparusi, a renowned photojournalist who died on the spot of the road crash
and his later discovered in a morgue in Abuja is not an isolated case. It
happens every day on the roads of Nigeria and in most African countries.
Adeparusi’s death coming in the week of 2016 WDR which is dedicated to
improving vital post crash actions with emphasis on Medicare, Investigation and
Justice should not be dismissed as mere coincidence but a disturbing urgency
that calls for a candid reflection on the plight of an average African road
user that is usually denied of all the above mentioned necessities in the event
of a road crash.
As Nigeria joins other governments and
nongovernmental organizations around the world to commemorate the 2016 WDR by
remembering the millions of lives lost or hurt by traffic crashes, the awful
truth is that after eleven years of UN recognition and 21 years of observance
of Remembrance Day by road safety interest groups, these important events are
yet to attract appropriate political will of the Nigerian government on its
worrisome road tragedies. Yet, Nigeria remains a country where every road user
is a probable road victim with long list of Policy makers including Ministers,
Federal Legislators, Governors, top government officials and their family
members lost to preventable road deaths.
It is fair and good to recognise that
Nigeria has a purposeful National Road Safety agency, FRSC that its staff and
Management have demonstrated knowledge for addressing road traffic injuries
especially with innovations and expressed best efforts but what is the capacity
of the agency in terms of human, facility and financial resources to address
the needs of over one hundred and forty million Nigerian road users. Candidly
put, as we remember the hundreds of thousands of road deaths in Nigeria on this
2016 WDR especially those that occurred in the year including the late Ocholis,
former Minister of State for labour, the two children of a serving
Senator, many innocent youths, noble Nigerians and loved ones that their
lives were abruptly terminated through road crashes, it is hard to be satisfied
with the level of attention extended to the disturbing road death statistics by
all tiers of government especially given that road crashes claim more lives on
daily basis than any known insurgence or war situation in Nigeria’s post
independence. How did the Nigerian road safety crisis get to this
depressing situation and what can be done, one may ask? Certainly, it is a
shared blame that requires a collective response approach by all stakeholders
including all road users.
Sadly, given the many challenges that
confront Nigeria in recession, what is increasingly clear is that the road
safety situation may get worse if necessary remedial steps are not speedily
taken. Indeed, as with every recession, vehicles will not be well maintained,
roads will experience increasing deterioration and the commercial driver
population will drastically increase as many workers in Nigeria have already
found it expedient to use their personal cars to augment their income.
With such a situation that puts more pressure on our roads and over stretches
the limited facilities of the FRSC with negative consequences of increased road
crashes, there is great need for the Nigerian government and its citizens to
speedily embrace the recommendations of the 2016 WDR in strengthening vital
post crash actions by enhancing rescue facilities for the FRSC and expanding
capacity of those that can provide care for road crash victims.
However, with Nigeria in a recession
era, it is difficult to imagine that the FRSC, an age long underfunded agency
will be protected from the effects of the massive contraction on government
spending. Thus, we must expand our thoughts on how to take care of crash
victims whilst urging the Presidency and Legislature to explore cum encourage
innovative funding options for road safety in a manner which will ensure that
all those that make commercial gains from road development and road use should
compulsorily fund road safety including companies that contribute to increased
motorization and alcohol beverage manufacturers that grossly increase road
risks.
On the specific call by 2016 WDR for
enhanced Medicare for road crash victims, the FRSC and the Federal Ministry of
Health have done well to address the problem of hospital rejection but what
about victims that need prompt attention on road crash scenes? On this, there
is no reason for road users to allow Nigeria’s temporary economic decline to
destroy their Good Samaritan instinct in helping people in need at road crash
spots. This is where it becomes necessary to restate that the earlier
recommendation of the 2007 Accra Declaration on road safety for compulsory First
aid knowledge by drivers and the call by Nigeria’s Minister of State for
Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire to make persons who apply for driver’s license for
the first time to undergo a ‘First Aid course’ before being issued a license is
overdue for implementation especially in such recession period. On this, the
need for the Ministry of Health to encourage all NGO’s working on other health
related issues to support the FRSC on first aid training for persons that live
in communities along major highways is an urgent call that will assure that
first care and response for crash victims are not left as burden for only FRSC
officials.
In a country like Nigeria that road
traffic injuries have become top killer disease where there is increasing
number of persons that leave their homes to use the roads but never return,
some are later declared missing or found in the morgues, ignoring the theme of
2016 WDR will further worsen a situation that affects all. The present huge
statistics on preventable road deaths which is major threat to the nation’s
ambition to meet the Sustainable Development: SDG target 3.6, which aims to
reduce global road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2020, should be a
major concern for every road user.
The commemoration of 2016 World Day of Remembrance in Nigeria will be
incomplete without advocating and appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari, a
Nigerian leader that enjoys the trust and confidence of the International
Community to lend his voice on the sad issue of preventable road deaths. Indeed,
President Buhari’s call on global partners of the UN Decade of Action on Road
Safety, major International Donors, Jean Todt, UN Special Envoy for Road Safety
and local philanthropists to support his government’s good intentions will not
only help change the complexion of road safety funding but help reverse the
statistics of Road Traffic Injuries in African’s most populous nation.
May, the souls of Adeyinka Adeparusi and the many innocent victims of our past
collective disappointment on road safety, rest in peace!
(Ojugbana is Project Adviser, PATVORA
Initiative, a Road Safety NGO. He is
also Country Ambassador, International Road Federation, IRF. Geneva.)
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