FRSC: Looking Back To Look Forward -By Emeka Nwankpa

Moments after I had just read online a stern press release recently by Bisi Kazeem, Head of Media Relations and Strategy of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) quoting his boss, Corps Marshal and Chief Executive, COMACE Boboye Oyeyemi that erring staff will no longer find space in the organization came a screaming headline on another news portal that the combustible Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State had arrested a traffic offender donning an FRSC vest.

For those who knew what the FRSC was and still should be, such a staff could at best dissolve and evaporate at that spot without trace. Such was the awe in which the organization was held within. To borrow the epic motto of the cerebral new acting Head of Service, Mrs. Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita, the FRSC pioneer staff were EPIC i.e. Efficient, Productive, Incorruptible and Citizen-centred.

It was therefore good news that an FRSC officer was nabbed for traffic offence. But some hours later when news came that the COMACE had disclaimed the ‘staff’ and even ordered his arrest for impersonation, it was indeed a relief to many including this writer. Back in time, indiscipline or any form of official recklessness was taboo in FRSC. I was there at its inception in 1988 so I knew what obtained. The caption of this piece therefore speaks for itself.

The import of Gov. Fayose’s ‘arrest’ of the fellow was not lost on the commission. This was why it moved swiftly to stem possible negative narrative the incident was bound to generate in the public domain.

The commission’s pioneer helmsmen realized early that corporate discipline, integrity and pride anchored on strong communication skills were the organization’s oxygen. To them, image was everything and they guarded it jealously.

However, between then and now, a lot of water can be said to have passed under the bridge. FRSC cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be said to be the same in view of many ‘foreign bodies’ that migrated in and out of the organization leaving behind traces of their rapacious infiltration. We shall leave that subject for another day for a more in depth inquisition and introspection.

In Boboye Oyeyemi’s case, he knows that as the first COMACE to emerge from within the commission, he has a date with history if only to prove to nay sayers that the FRSC has truly come of age in its response to unfolding crises and challenges in the nation’s road safety management.

As a product of the core values that many road users in the country associate with the commission, Oyeyemi bears no telling that the FRSC needs sustain its good image of many years particularly in operational efficiency and discipline. It is gladdening that he is doing just that especially during these ember-months leading to the Christmas and New Year festivities.

This perhaps explains why for some weeks now he has moved his headquarters round the different geo-political zones across the country discussing with state governors, reaching out to traditional rulers, community leaders, transport owners associations, commercial drivers’ unions and other stakeholders including road contractors and NGOs in the nation’s road sector. This is a throwback to the yester years of robust public engagement for which the commission was noted for especially the annual meet called the ‘Open House.’

In the FRSC that I knew as a Transport Reporter for The Guardian from 1988, image was everything to the commission’s pioneer officers who were mentored and tutored by Kongi, the Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka and the first Director of Operations and Chief Executive (DOACE), Dr. Olu Agunloye, a man whose sterling leadership in the commission dramatically shot into limelight in later years Recall that on February 18 1988 , the dogged duo established what is today a world-class institution that has now become a template for many countries in road safety administration. This is currently the challenge before Oyeyemi and his team. He was one of 250 corps members specially selected at an orientation camp in Abuja at its inception to form the nucleus of the corps.

To many officers in the commission, Oyeyemi is a metaphor and the poster boy of the FRSC, which explains why many look up to his leadership as a defining moment for the lead agency in the nation’s road safety administration that must be sustained against the backdrop of the global recognition it has achieved for Nigeria as a system that still works, warts and all.

Does this account for President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent conferment on him of the award of the National Productivity Order of Merit? Time will tell amid the challenges on the roads in this era of change when presidential kudos is hard to come by from the hard man. It is like squeezing water from stone.

Truth be told, with potholes and deep gorges daily swallowing innocent lives, the Nigerian roads are in chaos owing to funding constraints arising from plummeting government revenues. The president has chosen every forum to lament about how broke the nation is. The capacity to man kilometres of unmotorable roads remains FRSC’s biggest headache. Yes, it has always been but for how long will they continue to watch black spots swallow lives daily across the country? These are trying times indeed. Eminent voices have not ceased calling for intervention.

Former Commonwealth Secretary General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku once described the roads as “slaughter slabs where lives appear to worth little or nothing”. A World Economic Forum survey once rated the nation’s roads as 120 out of 142 countries, only better than Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritania, Burkina Faso where accidents are killing more people than diseases.

Some may argue that fixing the roads is not the primary business of the FRSC, the situation however calls for a massive collective intervention. The flagrant disregard for traffic laws which ranks high in the land especially among the elite class remains a sore thumb.

Not long ago, 12 students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye died on the spot when a truck driving against the traffic collided with their bus on the Sagamu-Benin expressway.

Available statistics show that no fewer than 5,596 people died in road accidents last year in the country while another 32,980 suffered various injuries. About 1.3m people die every year from road crashes globally while about 50m people suffer various injuries with Nigeria accounting for 10,380 of the crashes last year.

There have been cases of moving trucks with unstrapped containers such as the one that fell on a bus on the Benin-Ore highway claiming 60 lives in April 2013. In June 2015, 49 lives were lost during an inferno which was caused by avoidable tanker/trailer crashes.

There is much the commission can achieve as shown in its current collaboration with responsible state governments and responsive corporate bodies. It cannot relent in its engagement of transport and drivers’ unions just as it must continue to keep its officers on their toes.

Lastline: Whoever President Buhari finally appoints as Works and Transport Minister already has his job cut out for him. He should commence action by asking for a list of black spots on the nation’s roads (which FRSC regularly updates anyway) for immediate attention. Anything short of this is mere window dressing. I love my country a no go lie!

– Nwankpa, a public affairs commentator sent in this piece from Abuja