PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has felicitated with the management and staff of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) as the organisation celebrates 30 years of its establishment.
According to a statement, issued by a presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina in Abuja on Saturday, the president commended the vision of its founding fathers in February 1988 in response to the unacceptable level of road crashes in the country.
He noted with delight that after three decades of operations, the Corps reduced road crashes from an alarming 40,881 in 1976 to 5,993 in 2016 and 4,418 in 2017.
He further lauded the significant reduction in the emergency response time of the Corps from 50 to 15 minutes to accident scenes on the nation’s highways.
The President commended the FRSC’s deployment of international best practices and use of technology in its uniform licensing scheme, tracking, vehicle plate numbering and other services.
According to President Buhari, “the recent United Nation’s commendation of Nigeria’s road safety action plan, affirms the Federal Road Safety Corps’ leading role not only in West Africa but the entire African continent.”
He pledged the Federal Government’s continued support to the FRSC to enable the organisation to achieve the goal of United Nations Decade of Action on Road Safety of 50 per cent fatality reduction by 2020, thereby placing Nigerian roads among the league of 20 global safest roads by the target year.
Declaring that road safety is a shared responsibility, the President enjoined the FRSC to intensify its public education role, while urging other government and private organisations and the entire public to support the FRSC to further make road travels safer and more pleasurable.