The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) said yesterday that the September 30, 2013 deadline to replace their old vehicle number plate with the new biometric ones and for drivers to acquire the new licence remains sacrosanct.
Similarly, the corps has restated its resolve to re-licence all commercial drivers, maintaining that the measure remained part of its new strategy to checkmate traffic offences and curb road accidents.
The Corps Marshal and Chief Executive, Osita Chidoka, who stated that there was no going back on those measures, made the declaration yesterday while on a courtesy visit to the corporate headquarters of The Sun Publishing Company Limited, Kirikiri Industrial Estate, Lagos.
The FRSC boss, who solicited support for his organisation’s programme, led his team from the South West zone. They include Ademola Lawal, Assistant Corps Marshal, Zonal Commanding Officer, Zone 2 Headquarters, Lagos; Nseobong Akpabio, Lagos State Sector Commander; Fuomsuk Hyginus, Head, National Vehicle Identification System; Jonas Agwu, Corps Public Education Officer; A.O Sehinde, Unit Commander, Apapa as well as Morakinyo, Unit Commander, Wharf, Lagos.
The party was received on arrival by the company’s management team led by the Managing Director, Editor-in-Chief, Mr Tony Onyima. Chidoka said many issues were critical to his organisation now. The first being its desire to drastically cut down on the number of deaths on the highways due to over speeding and faulty engineering of many roads.
“Our resolve right now is to reduce deaths that occur on our roads due to overspeeding on the part of many drivers. When we are talking about overspeeding, many of us in Lagos may not understand. But when one travels on Asaba-Benin or Abuja-Lokoja highways for instance, one will understand that road crashes are increasing even with improved roads. This is primarily due to faulty engineering of the roads.
“Most of these roads are built with faults that do not forgive errors. Part of the road safety component is to forgive the mistakes of others. Nowadays, in modern road construction, the roads are padded as part of the safety component.
“What we have increasingly seen is that most of our roads are built without consideration to the safety of the communities where the roads pass.
“The expressways divide the communities without the engineers thinking about the safety of the residents. And there are no overhead bridges and no pedestrian crossings. So, engineering of the roads is a major problem, we are tackling that at the moment by starting up an Engineering Department of the FRSC.”
He maintained that, “our task is to decrease the number of accidents on the roads and we believe that a road, no matter how beautiful it may be, is not a road until it is marked. If you don’t, it is no road.”
Chidoka said the second part of his visit was to seek increased collaboration so as to sell FRSC’s agenda to the citizenry. The FRSC boss said he desired to use the strong platform offered by NE to reach out to the Nigerian community on issues that critically affect many, especially the proposed September 30 deadline on new number plate and the new driver’s license.
He said: “The fortune of the FRSC in the next 25 years is a major one. We have made it known that the September 30 deadline for Nigerians to change their old number plates to the new biometric ones is sacrosanct. There is no going back on that.”
On the commercial driver’s licence, Chidoka said every operator would be re-licenced. But that could not be until the drivers had been certified fit through tests that would be conducted on them.
“The third critical thing to us at the moment is the commercial driver’s licence. I have to reiterate that all commercial drivers operating in the country will have to be re-licenced. But we will not do that until we have seen their certificates of fitness. What that means is that their blood pressure, eyesight as well as blood sugar level test results will be known. That is why we are pushing for stronger media support so that we can put these pieces of information through to them.
“With these efforts, our goal is to reduce road crashes in the country. Of course, when one sees the graph of road crashes going down, what that means is that we are bringing down the problem. The difference is what could have happened if nothing was done,” he said. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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How many persons u would see to deem them fit for driving before we would assert their driving on roads? Hahahaaha! I laugh a black man's laugh. Is driving certification now involving medical reports first? Haahahaahah! Only in Nigeria we all make easy things go complicated by ourselves. Fine new biometric car plate no isn't bad, but mind u I dare to correct ur atom of malapropism mr frsc supretendent, Have u place in ur hard earn currency into d govt's bank to build roads?u said no roads are roads except they are marked, and u are still driving on what u call "no-roads"? Hahahahaha black man is always black in hrt. Every one in office seek out new strategies to embezell funds rather than creating funds for the people. Check mate ur office becos FRSC marshalls always falls victims to road traffic laws but they rescue themselves bcos they put on uniform, well only God will help this nation. From d GPRS
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