Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its 2012 Road Accidents Fatality statistics, which showed that about 250,000 Nigerians die annually as a result of road accident related mishaps. The figure was further corroborated by the Minister of Health, Professor Christian Onyebuchi Chukwu, who said Nigeria was rated 2nd out of the 193 countries in the world in terms of fatality arising from road accidents. The Minister, who disclosed this at an occasion to mark one year of the declaration of United Nation’s (UN) Decade of Action on Road Safety in Abuja, explained that 162 persons out of every 100,000 Nigerians die annually as a result of road accident-related cases. According to the Minister, the alarming increase in road accident fatality poses a great challenge to the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as the UN Decade of Action on Road safety, which aims at reducing fatalities resulting from road accident by 50% by the year 2020.
However, what is more scaring about this statistics is the fact that if no measure wan taken, and the trend continues, more than 5 million Nigerians will die in the next twenty years, as a result of road accidents. Even without the WHO statistics, road accident has become a serious pandemic that almost every Nigerian family had its share of the casualties. Road accident in Nigeria is believed to be number one killer, claiming more lives than HIV/AIDS or any other deadly health phenomenon.
It is rather an irony that both immediate and remote causes of this dangerous pandemic are well known to both the road users and the authorities but this knowledge has not helped in anyway in reducing the scourge of the pandemic. Some of the causes include poor condition of the vehicles, over speeding and flagrant violation of even the basic traffic rules. Other factors include reckless and under-age driving, as well as drunkenness, cell-phone use by drivers among many others. In a nutshell, the factors leading to the rise in the rate of road accidents in Nigeria can be summarized into non-challance attitude on the part of the authorities, which are responsible for both the road worthiness of vehicles and fitness of road users as well recklessness on the part of the road users. While the government can be blamed for the poor condition of the roads that have become death traps, the road users on the other hand do not seem to value their lives or the lives of others.
Therefore, this alarming rise in road accident fatality can only be checked with a radical attitudinal change by the road users. The road users must begin to understand the value of their lives by taking all precautionary measures that would reduce the fatality of road accidents. Road users must always ensure the roadworthiness of their vehicles, avoid driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or other intoxicants and ultimately drive within the safety speed limit. Road users must begin to understand the need to respect simple traffic rules and regulations like fastening seatbelts without being forced by the authorities.
On its part, government at all levels should rise up to the task by investing adequately in road construction and repair of dilapidated ones. Similarly, government should ensure that sound policies are formulated and implemented, which will check the rising level of importation of used cars and obsolete spare-parts. Authorities saddled with the responsibility of granting license for driving should also ensure proper test of applicants so that only those that are qualified are given license. Certainly, no human life is worth losing, hence the need for a collective effort to check the present alarming rise in road accident fatalities in Nigeria.
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