70% of federal roads are in Ogun – Abiodun

… Drums support for TRACE, FRSC, other traffic agencies

Tayo AFOLABI

Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun has declared that 70% of federal roads are in Ogun State.

Abiodun made who made the declaration added that one can not get to Lagos without passing through Ogun and to other parts of the country.

According to him, the busiest road in Nigeria is the Lagos-Ibadan express road, and therefore advised motorists and commuters to observe all traffic regulations.

The state governor represented by his Chief of Staff, Mr Salisu Talabi at the two-day annual lecture organized by the corps with the theme “Improving The Road Safety Through Technology Driven Road and Traffic Management”, said Nigerians need to support the traffic agencies by obeying traffic rules and regulations.

Abiodun at the event held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, called on all citizens of the state and Nigerians to support Traffic Compliance and Enforcement (TRACE) and other management corps as the festive period approaches.

“The biggest route is actually part of the movement, TRACE has actually done well in terms of managing traffic and ensuring traffic compliance and of course, they are ensuring general safety on our roads.

“What they are doing today, is to recruit and go through some process of rejuvenating their skills.

“We need to support what they are doing today and we must also appeal to the public to ensure they comply with traffic rules, traffic decorations on the roads, particularly in the ember months.

“In the next few days we will be in December, the roads will be busy most especially for festivity, we will ensure they obey traffic speed.

“You must support TRACE, FRSC and other traffic agencies corps, they are on the road, they put their own life on the road to ensure our own safety, the least we can do is to support them in the likes of their mandate, the mandate that is to protect lives and property on the roads.

“The festival period is here, so they are restrategizing, rebuilding their ability to do but they can not achieve more until members of the public support them.”

He however appealed to members of the public to support TRACE, FRSC in the cause of discharging their duties to our safety.

The guest speaker, Professor Kayode Oyesiku in his interview with newsmen said traffic flow is based on demands and reaction of the agencies with respect for the demands.

His words” In the last three years, we have had an increase in the traffic flow as a result of the demand for interaction for economic development and growth.

“The other part of the observation is that of the enforcement. It is a bit worrisome and disturbing that over the years, enforcement has been out to question.”

TRACE Commander, Seni Ogunyemi promised to improve road traffic through technology-driven road and traffic management.

Ogunyemi disclosed that the essence of the workshop was to look into what to be done to reduce the carnages on major corridors.

The Commander argued that technology is the best way to have facilitate and make sure that carnages are been reduced to the bearest minimum in major corridors.

He said “We are looking at the major infrastructure in terms of road furniture. We will be needing CCTV cameras to monitor all motoring publics around these corridors.

“We also want to have a parley with the internal revenue service through their technology of vehicle licenses, by looking into the numbers of vehicle we would be able to get the bio data of the owner or the driver, we don’t need to.

“We have been doing joint task force in terms of special operations, all the services commanders are very cooperative on that and we will continue to intensify efforts on the joint taskforce.”

The commissioner for transportation in Ogun State, Engr. Olugbenga Dario stressed that technology is important, describing it as a solution to varieties of issues that human beings actually face.

“The government’s responsibility is always to improve the infrastructure and as I have said we have done what we should do along with the inter-change to Abeokuta axis and also along Ijebu ode axis and the federal government’s own work is along the Lagos-Ibadan express way.”