Kayode Olagunju is my senior colleague. He was the Sector Commander in 2003.As Sector Commander, Lagos, he bore a bigger chunk of the burden o f ensuring the success of the seat belt campaign. Lagos, then and now account for over 30percent of vehicular volume in the country. These I mentioned last week.
I am therefore compelled to express my gratitude to him for his role before and during the takeoff. I am also grateful that after reading last week’s piece, he gave me thumbs up. How I wish, he followed his commendation with at least a dollar to bruise my ego.
Besides his thumbs up, he took me down the memory lane by sharing his experience as Sector Commander, Lagos as stated in last week’s publication. He also embellished my memory with two editorials which I hope to share with you as I strive to raise the discourse on the need for a post mortem on the level of compliance.
I pray that this effort will drive the dire need to build on what we have achieved collectively as a nation instead of dropping the ball midway. I do hope you enjoy his personal experience and the follow up editorials before I continue with my view point on the need to speed up the process by commencing enforcement on rear seat passengers.
Let me now share his testimony; ‘I remember the commencement of the enforcement at exactly 1201 am on January 1, 2003. The Corps was afraid of the backlash and I remember we were asked to postpone the enforcement. We tactically ignored the directive in Lagos and started arresting those returning from cross over church services. We were even labelled mean and ungodly piling pressure on people on the New Year day. That was seen as wickedness- by 7am all our offices were filled with impounded vehicles and the media stormed my office.
Kayode went further to state that ‘’the media concern and massive coverage assisted in raising awareness that we were serious. The news was everywhere. And like you said, since the motorists needed not to buy anything but just to strap, the level of compliance was huge. I remember Oye dashing me 50k, a huge sum them as he was shocked with the level of enforcement.
He summed up by noting that, ‘’ If it had backfired, we would have been punished too. I remember discussing with you that before the directive postponing the enforcement formally get to us, we would have commenced the enforcement. We both believed there was no need to postpone the enforcement again after the initial 6month extension. That was why we started by midnight of 31 Dec 2002 to “ambush” motorists coming from church and also preempted the postponement circular.
Prior to this time as testified by him, the media was awash with the campaign deadline which raised safety consciousness among the motoring public as a plank to ensuring its successes. Kayode was again helpful in providing two newsy materials from the News Agency of Nigeria of Dec 30, 2002 and an editorial by Vanguard of 13 January 2003.The Vanguard editorial was captioned: MOTORISTS AND SEAT BELT USE ORDER and it read; ‘’Nigerian motorists on January 1, 2003 woke up to the reality of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), order on the compulsory use of seat belt by drivers and front passengers plying our roads.
This order was consequent upon a five-month media enlightenment campaign embarked upon by the FRSC on the benefit inherent in the use of seat belts. The seriousness exhibited by the FRSC and the Police Force personnel in the enforcement of the order have led to the rush for seat belt purchase in the market by those whose cars lack this life saving facility.
This was followed by one from the News Agency of Nigeria with the caption… MANDATORY SEAT BELT USE-‘’the use of seat-belts by motorists will be enforced unfailingly from January 1, 2003, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has reiterated.
“We are not going back on it. As from January 1, it will become an offence for any driver not to use his seat-belt while driving,” Mr kayode Olagunju, Lagos State Sector commander of the FRSC, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the weekend in Lagos. Strangely.
Like I stated, the media support was instrumental to the success recorded. Years later when we attempted rear seat passenger enforcement, Thisday in 2016 published a beautiful and interesting piece captioned: FRSC and the Rear Seat Belt Enforcement…The Federal Road Safety Commission Establishment Act 2007, part 2, section 10 (4) (ee) mandates members of the Corps to arrest and prosecute persons reasonably suspected of having committed any traffic offence including driving a vehicle not fitted with seat belt or where fitted, not wearing same while the vehicle is in motion. The National Road Transport Regulation 2012, part XII 126(1) stipulates that every vehicle shall have fitted in the front and REAR SEAT, seat belt and child safety seat which shall be securely won by the driver and the other occupants of the vehicle while the vehicle is in motion.
Is Nigeria, running ahead of others? Are we leaving substance to pursue shadows? I do not think so. The United Kingdom is not enforcing back occupant seat belt? And how has this affected crash fatalities? A study shows that while drivers and front passengers fatalities fell by 21% and 28% respectively, fatalities for non-seatbelt wearing rear passengers rose by 16%. Countries all over the world are looking for ways to entrench safety in all facets of community living, and traffic safety happens to be one that every country is given optimum attention to. Data gathering all over the world attest to this. In the United Kingdom, out of the 1,432 car occupants killed in 2007, 34% had not belted up. An estimated 565 people were not using seat belt when killed in 2005. 370 would have probably survived if they had been properly restrained in Canada, the insignificant 7% of people not wearing seat belt account for almost 40% of fatalities in crashes’’.
Since we commenced the enforcement as well as in 2014 when I was privileged to again issue a statement on a proposed enforcement of rear seat belt, the reactions have always been withy and sometimes lamentable. In fact few days after the 2014 announcement, I received calls, text massages, tweets and other sundry contacts on the issue ranging from outright condemnation, passive inquiry, passionate outcry and a few commendations on the issue. Just like it was when we started, the reaction in 2014 was the same; mixed feelings with most of these based on pure ignorance.
Here are some of the reactions; Yahaya Usman says, “I rather sell my car than to go for seat belt construction. Sir make una fear God oh and know the kind of policy you are giving us! He continued, “if you want to save lives, you know where to go. But if you want to inflict pain on us it is not a new thing. We are used to many pains! Tall (Tallyjena007) said FRSC did not finish with number plate (sic) issue, now is back with seat belt, they should think before making this policies while Akin Raphael Akinsipe maintained that the intention is money making, noting that having lived in the UK for over ten years, he knows that wearing seat belt for back seat passenger is only compulsory for a child less than seven years. To Bassey Unaowo, FRSC with its Corps Marshal is out to exploit Nigerians again, bla bla la. There were so many other indicting comments, too numerous to mention here.
I however did receive quite some responses that support the initiative. Iffiok Akpanim wrote to say that God used it to save his life in 2010 when he ran into a deep ditch, was thrown up and rolled sideways. He came out unscratched. Eye@cike864 sounded quite irritated in his outburst. “For God’s sake seat belts are affordable … and are available in all motor spare parts! HABA NAA! I commend FRSC” wish there was enough space to show all the comments, as they make for interesting reading on people’s perception of the implication of the use of seatbelt.
Meanwhile, while we ponder on the need to act now, I need you to remember that if we commence rear seatbelt passenger usage now and succeed in getting the 11,104,918 private vehicles on our roads comply, we would equally succeed in cutting down crashes by a significant percentage. The same applies to the over 4,867,217 commercial vehicles as we are sure of at least saving the lives of the front seat passengers, assuming the enforcement meets a brick wall with respect to rear seat passengers because of the possible absence of seat belts in some of these vehicles. Whatever your thoughts, the truth is that seat belts save lives. It can’t be put simpler than that.
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