"NIGERIA'S ROADS ARE ONE OF THE WORST IN THE WORLD IN 2012. Nigeria has the second highest road accidents and fatalities among the 193 countries of the world today based on the available road accident data in the entire human universe in 2012. Nigeria records about 162 preventable or unnecessary deaths for every 100,000 Nigerian citizens that are alive today or 1 million deaths per year according to Onyebuchi Chukwu, the current Health Minister of Nigeria.
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the official agency of the Nigerian government that is mandated for making Nigeria's roads safe for motorists and other users, minimizing road accidents, educating motorists and members of the public reported on its website that:(i) Road crashes kill more Nigerians yearly than the HIV/AIDS that affect about 4 million Nigerians today. (ii) Deaths and physical injuries occur daily on Nigeria's roads. (iii) Every Nigerian has someone that they know or related to who has been killed or injured in a crash. (iv) Road accidents can be minimized, reduced and prevented.
Nigeria has made between $600 to $700 billion as her state revenues from her oil sales since the late 1960s without investing any substantial part of this oil income into the development and the modernizing the Nigeria's national road networks. The significant portion of this oil wealth has been stolen and siphoned by the past and present Nigeria's leaders to their own foreign bank accounts in the western nations, the Middle East and the Carribbeans or had been mismanaged or misused.
Nigeria's roads are plagued today with thousands of road accidents that lead to the enormous loss of human life and properties every year as well as putting more stress on our already inadequate and outdated health care systems. Most of the roads in Nigeria do not have the standard road mappings, speed limits, traffic signs and street lights. Most of the automobiles on the Nigeria's roads are not road worthy and most of the drivers that drive have either no valid driving licenses or very dangerous driving habits.
More road accidents, deaths and physical injuries will continue to be the order of the day in Nigeria for a long time as long as our roads are not modernized to the international standards by our corrupt leaders and officials. These trends will continue as long as there are no proper legal standards that all automobiles must meet before they can ply our roads and lastly until our drivers are well trained to improve their driving habits with highly regulated requirements for obtaining driving licenses to drive.
No comments:
Post a Comment