Lagos State government has called for creative advertising pitch for control of car parking in the state. The state government’s objective is to create public awareness on orderliness of vehicle parking within the state. It is not clear how many agencies are participating in the pitch, but a reliable source says that top creative advertising agencies are participating in the multimillion naira pitch.
According to the source, the state government is worried about reckless parking of vehicles by motorists and its economic implications. The source says, according to the brief to agencies, Lagos “wants to embark on public enlightenment about the disorder.”
When contacted, Remi Ibirogba, the state commissioner for information and strategy, confirmed the ongoing pitching, stating that “Lagos has a full public enlightenment campaign to address wrongful vehicular parking in the state. We will soon break the campaign.”
It is also believed that the public enlightenment will assist to reduce the persistent towing of vehicles parked at wrong places, as the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA) has been towing vehicles it considered packed at wrong places.
In order to ensure that it achieved the promised mega city status, the state government last year signed the Lagos State Road Traffic Bill into law.
Governor Babatunde Fashola had said then that the new law was a holistic review of the state’s traffic laws of 2003, adding that it was designed to ensure safety on the roads.
According to him, as reported, the growth of Lagos into a mega city with large migration into the state had resulted in traffic congestion, saying that the new law was one of government`s strategies to manage the situation.
Fashola said: “This new law is also the state government`s intervention to the alarming statistics of road accidents, especially those caused by reckless driving and activities of commercial motorcyclists.
“From records at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), 722 accidents were reported, comprising 568 males and 154 females between January and July this year. “At our Toll Gate Trauma Centre, 254 accidents, which resulted in 35 deaths, were recorded during the same period. 50 percent of the cases were caused by ‘Okada’ riders, 27 percent of the victims were passengers and 23 percent pedestrians.
“These are alarming figures and we cannot afford to allow this to continue, hence our intervention with this law.”
The governor sought residents’ voluntary compliance with the law, emphasising its real objective was to improve the traffic situation rather than putting people in jail, and pledged that his government would strictly implement the law, assuring that offenders would be given fair hearing and would be accorded the right to defend themselves during prosecution.
Meanwhile, the major advertising agencies that participated in the UAC corporate advertising account are still waiting for the result. multinational company had recently invited 11 top advertising agencies to pitch for the multimillion naira account, which is in closed process.
DANIEL OBI
