FRSC tasks major oil marketers, road transport owners on road safety

Worried by recurring incidences of road carnage across the country, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has directed the officials of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) to restore safety confidence in road transport and stop crashes on Nigerian roads.

Boboye Oyeyemi, the Corp Marshal of Federal Road Safety Corps, gave the directive at the truck renewal conference 2020 with the theme “Ensuring Road Transport Safety”.

Oyeyemi expressed concern over continuous flouting of safety regulations by most truck drivers in the country which resulted in persistent carnage on Nigerian roads.

He said the government is seriously worried about lack of compliance to safe haulage operations in Nigeria.

“Most trucks plying the roads don’t have safety valve which is high risk. One of the critical components of truck safety is safety valve installation. The failure of this fleet owners to install safety valve must stop. This is what causes most of the accidents by trucks on the road. We are tired of people dying on our roads and that must stop,” Oyeyemi said.

“I say it again, no safety valve, no loading of trucks. We should not be having talk shops, we must enforce action. The president is angry with the recurring incidences of carnage on our roads. This is not a good image for our country. It must stop,” he said.

He further called on all tanker drivers in the country to abide by the safety directive of not loading more than 45,000 litres, saying that the federal government will soon perform the audit of trucks across the country for safety compliance measures.

Earlier in her remarks, the Minister of State for Transportation, Gbemisola Saraki, represented by Angela Koyede, director of mass transit administration in the ministry, said most road accidents are caused by human factors, arguing that such factors could be addressed.

She urged transport officials to replace the worn-out trucks, informing that the government is developing truck transit parks to improve safety of haulage on Nigerian roads.

Also in his remarks, Adetunji Oyebanji, the Chairman of MOMAN, said the idea of truck renewal is to fashion out right framework, which is that the idea of renewing old trucks could be sorted out.

He said the federal government’s transition to deregulation behoves on the marketers to manage their haulage process efficiently since distribution margins previously paid by the government are no longer guaranteed.