A former Minister of Aviation and former Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Osita Chidoka, on Monday urged the Federal Government to make urgent investments in road safety or risk tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming years.
Speaking in an interview on The Morning Brief on Channels TV, Chidoka warned that Nigeria could lose at least 65,000 people to road crashes by 2030 if current trends continue.
“If we do nothing and these crashes keep growing at the current 10 per cent between 2024 and 2025, and FRSC remains without patrol vehicles and fueling to go about at least reducing speed on our highway, by 2030, we would have lost at least 65,000 Nigerians from road crashes.
“It could be me, it could be you, and it could be anybody, and that is not good enough,” he lamented.
Chidoka criticised what he described as a lack of decisive action on road safety despite recurring mass-casualty incidents, saying, “No country loses 5,000 people from a particular incident and does nothing.”
The former minister also insisted that the country has the capacity to significantly cut down fatalities and serious injuries, explaining that the nation could aspire to what he called “vision zero.”
According to him, “Vision zero is possible, and I tell people that I’m passionate about road safety. Road safety is not the same as FRSC. FRSC is the Federal Road Safety Corps, but road safety is an issue that Nigerians should be interested in.”
Chidoka said no new laws were required to begin improving safety conditions. “I am saying to Mr President, we don’t need any new legislation, we don’t need any new laws,” he stated.
