By Dwelleth Morountodun
As the clock tick to the end of 2019 today Tuesday, 31st December, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Dr Boboye Oyeyemi,
has urged Nigerians, particularly the motoring public and road users to sustain collective vigilance against the menace of road traffic crashes in the country.
He said joint strategy and effort remain the panacea for dealing with the challenges of road traffic crashes.
Oyeyemi stated this in his 2020 new year message in which he applauded the critical road safety stakeholders for sustaining the tempo of campaigns in the outgoing year with call on them not to relent in the new year.
According to the statement signed by FRSC Public Education Officer, 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 and living up to the expectation of making road safety a collective responsibility of all.
This he said, remains the best guarantee to safeguarding public safety and creating safer road environment in the country.
Oyeyemi, called for more efforts in the coming year to consolidate on the gains of the campaigns in the outgoing year in order to restore sanity on the nation’s roads. He reiterated the importance of 2020 in 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 United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011-2020, its success is very critical.
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.
“Nigeria was one of the member nations of the UN to activate the global road safety campaign when it was first launched in 2010. Since then, the nation has remained active in its campaigns through increased investment in road safety management and all the pillars of the campaign, which must be sustained for us to gain favourable rating in the measurement of our success story,” the Corps Marshal stated.
“I therefore, urged all relevant stakeholders and members of the public not to relent their efforts in the coming year, for Nigeria to stand out among the comity of nations that participated actively in the campaign,” he added.
The FRSC spokesman stressed that the Corps Marshal reassured road travelers 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 however enjoined them not to treat issues of road safety with levity, stressing that road traffic crashes don’t just happen, but are caused and can be averted, if motorists adhere strictly to traffic rules and regulations. He added that all the FRSC rescue facilities as well 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.
He further stressed that road safety is no accident, but concerted efforts made by road users to obey traffic rules and regulations and guide against what could be prevented. “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 counter measures 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.