The 8th FRSC Annual Lecture Series has come and gone, but leaving behind the commitment to ensuring the safety of lives and properties in the road transport sub-sector.
The FRSC, according to its Corps Marshal, Shehu Mohammed, has adopted the Annual Lecture Series as a platform to create awareness on the recurrent issues on road crashes as a major public health challenge requiring urgent action.
The purpose of the Lecture Series, he explained , is to share experiences and provide fresh perspectives on road safety management in Nigeria.
The maiden edition of the Annual Lectures was organised in the year 2009
The successes of the First Lecture series motivated the Corps to adopt the lecture series as a yearly platform to canvas support and create massive awareness on the challenges posed by road crashes especially, against the emerging trend on global road transport system.
The last Annual Lectures was held in 2017, however the decision to resuscitate the lecture series in 2025, according to the Corps Marshal, is hinged on the need to utilize global partnership as leverage to domesticate global best practices as remedial action on the road safety issues in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole.
The theme of this year’s lecture series, Road Safety Management and Emerging Transportation Trends: Global Partnership and Optimal Performance was chosen as a deliberate guide to ensure that deliberations would proffer solutions to the challenges of emerging trends in global road transportation.
The theme was also carefully selected to align with the United Nations Assembly resolutions for Africa to implement measures that could reduce road crash fatalities and injuries by 50% by the year 2030.
In spite of effort by FRSC to create awareness through enforcement, advocacy, and public enlightenment campaigns, current data on road crashes reveal a yearly average of about 5,000 persons killed and 31,154 persons injured.
These figures underscore the need for the Corps to do more in harnessing resources towards implementing the national road safety development plan as captured in the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) document.
The Corps Marshal said the NRSS was developed as a blueprint for a successful implementation of the national road safety development plan.
NRSS seeks to harness collaborative effort of road safety stakeholders from local, through to the Federal Government levels to holistically implement the blueprint for sustainable road transport safety management in Nigeria.
While commending the government for its consistent support for its programmes through improved funding and strengthening of the institutional framework.
He believed it will also provide the needed motivation in terms of welfare and security of personnel that will positively impact its productivity in service delivery.
He hoped to bequeath an enduring road safety legacy for the nation.
In his keynote address, the Vice President KASHIM SHETTIMA reminded that the purpose of the Annual Lecture series underscores the need for the Corps to review performance, identify needs as well as create awareness on the challenges of road safety management in Nigeria.
Consistent with these objectives, he believed that the lecture series will open up new vistas for driver education, policy makers, and the general public to imbibe best practices and innovations on road safety.
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While commending the FRSC for its numerous laudable achievements which placed Nigeria on focus as a lead country in road safety management in the West Africa sub-region as well as in Africa in general, he recalled that through the FRSC efforts, Nigeria hosts the Permanent Secretariat of the West Africa Road Safety Organization (WARSO) and currently, Nigeria was also elected to host the Permanent Secretariat of the Africa Lead Agencies on Road Safety (ARSLA); amongst several other laurels and awards as best performing agency in road traffic management.
According to him, these are remarkable achievements deserving of government commendation.
The guest lecturer, the Executive Director of the FIA Foundation, London, United Kingdom, Mr. Saul Billingsley, in his keynote address on the topic “Road Safety Management and Emerging Transportation Trends: Global Partnership and Optimal Performance” said the activities of the Federal Road Safety Corps are recognised across the world.
“Your leadership, both in domestic policy, saving lives and preventing injuries here in Nigeria, and as a key player in the global road safety community, is well appreciated. ”
He described FRSC as a high profile and well-resourced lead agency for road safety as the Corps provides an institutional model for other countries seeking to improve their road safety performance.
According to the most recent World Health Organization analysis, Africa is the only world region which, in recent years, has experienced an increase in road traffic deaths, up by ten per cent between 2018
and 2021.
“What is clear is that Africa is currently experiencing the same correlation of rising fatalities with increasing motorisation that every part of the world has gone through.
He therefore said the challenge is how to decouple sustainable mobility from violent injury or death.
Across the world, the countries which achieve the best road safety performance are those which adopt a version of the Safe System approach, even if they haven’t explicitly embraced the goal of Vision Zero, he noted.
People, he submitted often focus on the technical elements of the Safe System and forget the ethical dimension. But for the architects of Vision Zero, ethics were at the heart
of the argument.
The Tylosand Declaration,sponsored by the Swedish Government in 2008 and endorsed by many road safety experts, states:
“Everyone has the right to use roads and streets without threats to life or health”.
Meanwhile in his remarks, the SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FEDERATION, Senator George AKUME, said over the years the effort of the FRSC had translated into improved awareness on proper road use, vehicle maintenance as well as setting standards for fleet operators in the country.
Akume re-emphasized that over 90% of transportation is through the road transport hence the need for safety precaution on the road which cannot be overemphasized.
He said the timing of the Lecture Series was also crucial because it is coming up at the beginning of Ember Months: a period that is associated with a surge in the volume of vehicular traffic as well as in the statistics of road crash fatalities and injuries.
“As we deliberate on the way forward, I enjoin the corps to put up practicable measures towards achieving zero-death in road crashes during the Yuletide and the New Year celebrations.”
“Therefore, I wish to use this opportunity to encourage the Corps Marshal and his team not to relent in their effort to advance the course of road safety in the Nation.
“I therefore, appeal to all stakeholders to collaborate in making road safety priority; and as we share responsibilities, we can strengthen enforcement, improve response time to crash scenes thus saving more lives on our roads.”
■ Abdul is Abuja based journalist and wrote in via abduljelil2001@gmail.com
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