Article published in The Nation Newspaper
28/04/2010
The murder of our the Nation Judicial Correspondent in Lagos is yet another blow to journalism in Nigeria which has lost so many good people recently. We still do not seal off and take finger prints at crime scenes. Similarly, the murder of 10 policemen doing their duty at checkpoints is a terrible crime depriving so many families of loved ones, bread winners and also demands urgent solving. People, even police and soldiers and journalists, do not expect to be killed just for doing their jobs. What is really happening in this country?
The GL-Jonathan must urgently remove the stranglehold of centralsiation that has truncated Nigeria’s growth and work to decentralise electric power, rail, transport and education urgently and beef up crime investigation and forensic capacity of the police and pathologists. Who is next?
The management of the Bakassi returnees are still refugees, deserves a revisit and small scale and microcredit banking facilities to become Nigerians again.
It is emotionally, economically and socially disruptive that Nigerian authorities in oppressive uniform, still cannot manage ‘simple’ situations as ‘road traffic accidents’. This road management incompetence is forcing us to spend 6 hours on a 1½ hour ‘expressway’ road because vehicles from the other side crossover to face you and force you to drive into the bush to give them ‘chance’. Their own side of the ‘expressway’ is blocked by really furious fiery furnaces of fuel trucks in collision with tankers causing mayhem for hours with no information turning motorists into madmen.
Are the drivers dangerous, drunk or on drugs even, or just plain mad to have such frequent accidents so ly? The Lagos Ibadan Expressway must hold the world record for major accidents which one must call ‘RTAs’ or Road Traffic Attacks’ for they are too frequent, unrealistic and damaging to be mere ‘Road Traffic Accidents’. Are these drivers on suicide missions or cheating by crashing vehicles after having sold the products, petrol contents or vehicle parts and wish to burn the evidence? These ‘accidents’ must be investigated for fraud. Are they trying to punish their owners for inadequate pay or is it mostly just bad vehicle maintenance? The thousands of trapped vehicles have to find a way out or face a standstill for hours. This logjam is a regularly repeated recipy for a massive 100 car holocaust more. Be warned and beware!!!!
Several major accidents occur daily on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway totalling more than a thousand a year and doing something about that is not nuclear physics. It is management and preventive planning and the ‘Active Management of The Accident Scene’ just like the crime scene. For too long the authorities are paralysed and next to or more than useless at accident scenes, doing little or nothing constructive to do the four most important things ie clear the obstruction ASAP, keep the traffic orderly, keep traffic moving and keep traffic in turn without extra lanes. Cross over traffic is often necessary if the whole side is blocked. However this has to be orderly, sinfle file and using as short a loop to the other side and back as possible. This is why the Ministers of Works and Transport must insist on urget alteratiosn to the designs of all Expressways to allow smooth tarmac road easy to use for lorries ‘Emergency Crossover Points’ every 2 kilometers to allow for quick cross-overs and cross-backs to contain the current regular chaos on the roads.
The FRSC needs to become much more active and proactive to prevent and control accident situations. So far the FRSC is grossly incompetent as demonstrated by the weekly disasters on the expressway. Its preoccuation with stop and search or stop and intimidate is pathetic diversion in the face of an overwheling need for distinguished leadership on the road. The road user should experience deliveance not depression when sighting FRSC or eventhe police checkpoint for that matter. That is not the case. Instead of deliverance or delight there is depression. In these days of wasted airtime and reality TV and cell phone cameras all readily available, The FRSC should set up a citizen reporting system and choose radio stations to partner with which can take authentic phone calls from road users stuck in traffic or who have just extricating themselves from major road jams.
The FRSC could then give a half-hourly ‘FRSC Traffic Accident Bulletin/Update’ on roads sponsored by the oil/petrol/ communication or IT companies or be a social service Corporate Social Responsibility 1 minute update on traffic holdups on the Lagos Ibadan expressway, the Ore Benin and other road hurdles. Information can be supplied by phone-in users, airplane pilots overflying the Lagos Abuja route and dedicated FRSC Traffic Reports from officers on the ground.
The FRSC should wake up and should take a leaf out of films and similar services like Highway Patrol worldwide, just as hospitals should learn from ‘emergency’ films. When FRSC started and we were Special Marshals the FRSC was more about ‘The Logistics of High Volume Traffic Management’, ‘Reducing Speed’ and ‘Free Flow of Traffic’ than ‘stop and search’ and ‘overloading’ and ‘where are your particulars’ and never bribery. Why can FRSC still not erect and enforce common ‘Keep Right’ for trucks and trailers, mark potholes and be physically present during massive holdups? CountdowNigeria@50 – 141 demands up-to-date road use information, a sharper more progressive citizen-serving FRSC and a national pothole marking and pothole filling project.