According to the World Bank in December 2022, Nigeria is one of the countries with the highest rate of road accidents globally. Also, the Federal Road Safety Corps has reported that a total of 32,617 persons lost their lives to road crashes in Nigeria from 2016 to 2021.
The statistics revealed that 5,053 lives were lost in 2016; 5,121 in 2017; 5,181 in 2018; 5483 in 2019; 5574 in 2020, and about 6,205 died in 2021. For 2022 the figures are yet to be ascertained. Although the menace is all over the county, Bauchi-Jos road has been said to be recording more accidents within these years. The FRSC, Bauchi State commander Yusuf Abdullahi, revealed that the sector has recorded 402 deaths in three years from 2020 to 2021.
Given the above, one can say that after the Boko Haram insurgency and banditry, road accident is the third major crisis Nigeria is experiencing. However, experts have attributed 60% of the problems to reckless driving and over-speeding, though 30% is said to be a result of the poor condition of roads nationwide.
Similarly, another 10% is attributed to the lack of standard firefighting trucks on the country’s major highways; multiple vehicles are engulfed in fire the moment accidents occur, and this has led to the burning to death of many travellers. When there are such accidents, one hardly finds any means of extinguishing the fire.
Recently, on 4 January 2023, 18 people were burnt to death along the Bauchi -Jos highway in a ghastly motor accident. Immediately after the accident the vehicles caught fire and there was no firefighting truck to put off the fire. A lot of accidents happened along the road whereby many travellers were burnt. On March 2018, a trailer collapsed in the Panshanu axis, catching fire and claiming the lives of seven people, 39 cows and eight goats. On 10 August 2022 in Babale village, Jos, Plateau State, 10 lives were lost and 18 others sustained various degrees of injuries.
The non-dualisation of the roads linking the northeast and the north-central regions is another factor for frequent accidents along the Bauchi-Jos road. In 2018 the federal government approved over N348 billion for the road yet there is nothing on ground. I’m appealing to the federal government to provide firefighting trucks along the nation’s highways to help in protecting lives and properties of the citizens. Else the federal should help in the continuation of the already awarded dualisation of the Akwanga-Jos-Bauchi and Gombe roads.
Ukasha Rabiu Magama, Magama Toro LGA, Bauchi State
