Frsc To Hold Safety Rallies In Geo-political Zones

The Federal Roads Safety
Corps (FRSC) is to hold enlightenment rallies in motor parks and major cities across the six geo-political zones as part of strategies to reduce road accidents.
The Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, announced this on Tuesday at the launch of the Exxon Mobil Pan-Nigeria Road Safety Campaign in Abuja.
Oyeyemi said toward this, EXXON Mobil had donated five vehicles equipped with modern communication gadgets worth N65 million.
He also said that the multinational company had provided enlightenment materials and 32 billboards under the first phase of the campaign.
The corps marshal explained during the exercise that handbills containing safety tips would be distributed, adding that collective effort was needed to stem the tide of road traffic accidents.
“One of the discernible factors militating against driver education and safety management in Nigeria is the lack of enlightenment billboards and other materials known to be natural motivator.
“We must commend Mobil and NNPC for the intervention. The five vehicles donated to FRSC to facilitate the rallies have modern public address system.
“ With this facility, we can cover up to twenty motor parks in a day. We can even move from Abuja to Lokoja and Lagos to intervene whenever there is traffic gridlock.
“Road safety is a shared responsibility, government alone cannot fund it.
“I urge other organisations to take a cue from Mobil by partnering with the corps in its quest to reduce road carnage and bring sanity,’’ Oyeyemi said.
Also speaking, the WHO Country Representative, Dr Rui Miguel, said road traffic accident remained a major public health problem and a leading cause of death, injury and disability globally.
Miguel said: “Each year, nearly 1.3 million people die and between 20 million and 50million more are injured as a result of road crashes’’.
He said more than 90 per cent of those deaths occurred in low-income and middle-income countries which had less than half of the world’s vehicles.