… Kaduna, Ogun, Abuja most affected states
…Greenlight Initiative suggests 30km/hr in school areas, markets, worship centres
Road accidents in Nigeria have claimed the lives of 9,306 individuals between January 2022 and June 2023, with Kaduna and Ogun states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory Abuja recording the highest casualties among the states in the federation during the period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced.
From the first quarter of 2022 to the second quarter of 2023, the average quarterly deaths from road accidents stood at 1,551, the highest being 1,834 deaths at the end of the first quarter of 2022 while the least deaths, 1,409, occurred at the end of the second quarter of 2023.
Kaduna State, north west Nigeria, recorded the highest deaths through road accidents during the six quarters under analysis, with the total deaths being 938, implying that at least 52 individuals died monthly from road accidents during the period.
This as Greenlight Initiative, a non-profit NGO focusing on transportation safety and sustainable development, has advised road users to shun over speeding while driving on the Nigerian roads just as it advised both the state and federal governments to implement speed limit of 30km/hour on roads leading to school areas, markets and worship centres which have higher population density during certain periods of the day.
“What we need to do is develop the capacity of young drivers in order to have improved road behaviours, as we have found out that some of these drivers don’t understand road signs and traffic rules as well as increase their awareness generally,” Adebayo Stephen, programme officer at Greenlight Initiative, said, adding that his organisation is currently conducting a study on driver-passenger relationship with some donors and a globally recognised university for the benefit of road users in Nigeria and beyond.
Ogun State, south west Nigeria, recorded 605 deaths through road accidents, which translated to 34 deaths through road accidents on a monthly basis.
Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, with its good network of roads ranked third, recording 568 deaths from January 2022 to June 2023, amounting to 32 deaths by road accidents on a monthly basis.
Bauchi recorded 562 deaths while Niger recorded 539 deaths, to complete the list of the top five states with the highest deaths by road accidents during the 18-month period.
Imo, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Ekiti and Bayelsa states in that order, recorded the least deaths by road accidents during the period. There were 70 deaths by road accidents in Imo State while Rivers State recorded 58 deaths by road accidents during the same period.
Akwa Ibom recorded 52 deaths; Ekiti, 52 deaths just as Bayelsa State recorded just 17 deaths by road accidents during the 18-month period.
The road accident data further showed that men were the most victims of road accidents. In Q1 2023, 78 percent of the accident victims were males while female victims constituted 15 percent with the remaining being shared between male child and female child.
In Q2 2023, 76 percent of accident victims were males, with women constituting 17 percent just as the male and female children shared the balance.
Our analysis further showed that at 33 percent, cars caused the most accidents on Nigerian roads, followed by motorcycle, minibuses and trucks. According to the analysis of the data from NBS, the largest chunk of the accidents, or 67 percent, was caused by commercial vehicles and private vehicles.
Most of the accidents resulted from speed violation according to the NBS data, as six out of ten accidents occurring during this period were caused by drivers’ inability to control their speed at the time of impact. Other causes include sign light violation, dangerous driving, wrongful overtaking, and tyre burst while on high speed.
Ogun State is the worst state in terms of speed violation, a major cause of road crashes also in FCT Abuja, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Kaduna, and Niger.
Sign light violation is most common in Enugu State just as wrongful overtaking is worst in Nasarawa, Kaduna, FCT, and Gombe.
