The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Tuesday, decried the number of deaths caused by road crashes across the country, stressing that this was becoming alarming.
Fashola, who spoke at the 23rd Annual General Meeting of the National Association of Road Transport Owners in Abuja, said a recent report made available to him showed that 449 people lost their lives to road accidents in one month – October.
He said, “I want to appeal for safety on our roads. Some of us have spoken about it. I have received the November report from FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corps); I’ve not read it. But the October report gave me cause for concern.
“Incidents of road traffic crisis are perhaps the biggest epidemic and threat to our collective safety that we have to pay attention to. We have other things that we speak about every time, such as insecurity and others.
“But in one month, the month of October, we lost 449 people in road traffic accidents. That’s a lot! And I’m not saying it is truck owners or truck drivers alone, but it contributes.”
He added, “There were a thousand plus crash incidents in that period. 449 lives were lost, 2,708 people were injured. We can do better than this. So my appeal to you is to professionalise this industry of driving.
