2020: FRSC boss seeks collective action against road carnages

The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Dr Boboye Oyeyemi has called for collective action and vigilance against the menace of road traffic crashes in the country.

Oyeyemi in his new year message made available to newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja stressed that collective action was required for Nigeria to actualise the goals of United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011-2020.

While urging Nigerians, particularly the motoring public to obey traffic rules insisted that road safety was the responsibility of all, adding “joint effort remains the panacea for dealing with the challenges of road traffic crashes”.

He applauded the critical road safety stakeholders for sustaining the tempo of campaigns in the outgoing year with a call on them not to relent in the new year.

According to a statement by the FRSC Public Education Officer, Mr Bisi Kazeem, the Corps Marshal expressed appreciation to the stakeholders for joining hands with the Corps in the effort to creating safety consciousness among road users.

This he said, remains the best guarantee to safeguarding public safety and creating a safer road environment in the country.

Oyeyemi called for more efforts in the year 2020 to consolidate on the gains of the campaigns in the outgoing year in order to restore sanity on the nation’s roads.

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He reiterated the importance of 2020 in the ongoing global campaign for road safety, noting that as the last year before the evaluation of the success of the decade long campaigns for road safety set under the auspices of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety.

The FRSC boss, therefore, urged every Nigerian to remain committed to the ideals of the campaign for the nation to stand out in the evaluation of the successes of the campaign in the subsequent year.

The Corps Marshal reassured road travellers of their safety and convenience during the new year celebration and return trips, saying the FRSC personnel would remain in their earlier deployed posts throughout the period.

He added that all the FRSC rescue facilities, as well as media platforms including the call centre, would remain open and at alert to serve members of the public during the celebration and beyond.

“For the avoidance of doubt, members of the public should not hesitate to report road traffic crashes, obstruction or other emergencies to the FRSC Toll-Free line: 122 and tune into the National Traffic Radio on107.1FM Abuja with the studio numbers: 09067000015 and 08052998090 respectively,” he disclosed.

“Everyone must, therefore, drive to save a life and with the consciousness of one waiting to get home safely to meet his waiting family,” the FRSC boss further stated.

It would be recalled that as part of the countermeasures against the menace of road traffic crashes during Yuletide season with heightened traffic movements across the country, the FRSC instituted the yearly special end of year operations launched at the beginning of September to cover the ember months.

This year’s campaign codenamed, “Operation Zero Tolerance for Road Traffic Crashes,” heightened from 15 December with massive deployments of personnel and logistics as well as monitors from the National Headquarters Abuja to the identified corridors and all parts of the roads across the country.

The operation is expected to last till 15 January 2020 when the Corps Marshal who oversees the entire operations is expected to issue a stand-down order.