By Eze Nkechi
The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Shehu Mohammed, has expressed his disappointment and concern over the persistent disregard for traffic laws by some drivers, despite the Corps’ efforts to enhance road safety, resulting in preventable crashes, loss of lives, and property damage.
This was stated this in the wake of a fatal road traffic crash that occured at Kanbi village, on the Olooru new Jebba road in Kwara State at exactly 2000HRS on Thursday 13 June, 2024.
Preliminary investigation reveal that the crash which occured as a result of excessive speed and wrongful overtaking involved 2 vehicles; a blue Iveco trailer with no trace of registration and a white Toyota Hiace bus with registration number LSD363YE.
A total of 25 people were involved, comprising of 13 male adults, 5 female adults, 2 female children and 5 male children. From this number, 5 people were injured (3 male adults and 2 female adults), and 19 victims killed (11 male adults, 3 female adults,3 male children, and 2 female children.
The injured victims have been rescued to Orisun Ayo hospital, 1 corpse was deposited at the morgue of the same hospital while the remaining 18 dead bodies were claimed by the families of the deceased.
You would recall that in recent time, apart from setting up an Inter-agency Joint Task Force to tackle the excesses of trailer drivers, the Corps equally enhanced its enlightenment campaigns as well as ensured robust engagement of stakeholders, especially the various transport unions all in a bit to curb this ugly occurrences.
It is therefore unfortunate that irrespective of all the efforts in place, some drivers have decided not to adhere to safety standards as such compromising the safety of innocent Road Users.
In line with his 2024 agenda for drastic reduction in road carnage’s, the Corps Marshal has directed Commanding Officers to intensify special patrol operations against these identified violations.
