Improving road traffic management in the FCT

WHAT is more glaring about the pressure of unending influx of people into the Federal Capital Territory on available facilities is the heavy impact on intra city road traffic sector. The end result, as witnessed on a daily basis, is the unnecessary traffic jams and congestion along major arterial roads. Journeys that ought to take a short time, because of the available facilities, now take much longer, simply because many road users decide not to follow basic rules of traffic use within the city.

It also manifested through parking on areas that are meant for pedestrian walkways, ignoring pedestrian bridges, ignoring zebra crossings, driving against traffic, overloading, parking in undesignated car parks.

Gradually, the city is beginning to look chaotic, which shouldn’t be because Abuja as a city, has been well planned with one of the best road networks in any city in Africa.

It is against this backdrop that the FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, should be commended for setting machinery in motion to correct these anomalies and improve road traffic management in the FCT. The minister understands that the most important requirements for the smooth running of a large city is a functional and reliable public transportation system running within an efficient traffic management hub that has capacity to meet the challenges and desires of all categories of people.

Thus, a high calibre team comprising the Federal Road Safety Corps and all these other government agencies earlier mentioned, was set up to produce and implement an efficient traffic management system for the city and also by extension, for also the surrounding satellite towns.

The team was charged to make sure that all traffic regulations are adhered to as provided by law. Part of its objective also is to use the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, the laws of the highway code, the FCT Transport Regulations, the National Road Traffic Regulations and other traffic laws and regulations to ensure that those who violate traffic regulations and protocols are made to pay for it because that is the only way we can guarantee the safety of lives of our people.

Today in the FCT, the team has been very successful in correcting some of the ills that bedeviled the transportation sector in the FCT. Such negative traffic as reckless driving, driving against traffic, use of unpainted taxis and the most dreaded one chance criminality are being tackled with utmost seriousness.

It is clear that the whole concept of what the FCT Administration in partnership with the Road Safety Corps and the Nigerian Police and all the other government agencies are trying to achieve is to save the lives of Nigerians.

It’s very important also for the general public to appreciate that the FCT Administration has not banned motorcycles or tricycles because these modes of transport are very crucial in the transportation value chain.

• Danladi Akilu, Abuja