 And we're back. To a first major conversation this morning on the breakfast, the Federal Road Safety Corps has announced on Monday that it has deployed a 36,224 personnel and 1,226 patrol logistics to facilitate vehicular movement during the Christmas and New Year celebrations across Nigeria. Now the FRSCs act in Kormasho, Daouda, Buu. This was there during a press briefing in Abuja. At the press conference, Buu said the Federal Safety Corps had maintained a culture of organizing special patrol operations, codenamed Operation Zero Tolerance, to road traffic crashes. For many years, he added that they measures a full series of activities that mark the holiday season to ensure the safety of lives and property of road users. Now, the FRSC boss also went out to reveal at the press conference that the objective of the special patrol operations during this period, which commenced on December 15, 2022, would end on January 15, 2023 and has focused on the enforcement of traffic laws and prompt response to accident victims. Let's look at the issue of safety on our roads this year. We're glad to say joining us to do justice to this particular issue is none other than Mr. Imanole Kuley. Imanole Kuley is the National Court Data Roperine Foundation, which is the network on police reform in Nigeria. What I'm told while we have a Mr. Nika Guley, Public Affairs Analyst, since he apologizes for that mix up and very glad to have you on the program this morning. Hello, Mr. Nika Guley. Good morning to you, sir. Yes, good morning. Good morning to you and good morning to everyone. Sorry for the mix up. What are your thoughts? I've always had this, you know, view when I hear the police and the road safety officials, you know, ramp up the activities in celebratory periods. I always would ask, I mean, must they ramp up activities during celebratory periods? Are lives not worth, you know, saving in periods other than the Christmas Easter and salad festivities? But some would say that, you know, it's because of the increased activity. What do you say to this thought? Thank you very much for that question. My view is that when the sectoral safety permission and the police put up this press conference, I issue this statement in the runoff to festive periods, like Christmas, New Year, salad, the regressions, and all that. Because this is what it's expected of them every day. It is not only during festivities that we have our roads busy. Our roads are busy lying around. Agreed, there is an increase in traffic on some routes during the festivities, but every day of the week, our roads are busy. And one would expect government agencies to best have the possibility of safety of our roads to be doing their job on an eight-day basis. It shouldn't be a ceremonial thing that, oh, all the during Christmas and New Year, I will go and announce that I have deployed X numbers of men, I've deployed X number of vehicles and helicopters and all of that. That should be on a very busy because Nigerian roads are one of the most dangerous in the world. Dangerous in the world means that the road conditions themselves are not good. Most roads are not motorable. It can hardly drive on a marginal road for a kilometer without encountering a poor road. Secondly, the quality of vehicles on marginal roads, most vehicles are rickety. These are vehicles that have been rejected in other countries that are road roadways. We import them and then put them on a road that even has become a junkyard, a expired vehicle. And then the drivers are rickety on a Nigerian road. Most of them are rickety because the government is unable to enforce a driver licensing regime where you have to go to driving school, turn the driving test and pass it before you can get a license. Anybody can get a license in Nigeria. So when you have this combination of three factors, it makes Nigerian roads one of the most dangerous in the world. And you expect government agencies that say we do that with limited to be carrying out this pressure or pressure on a daily basis to prevent Nigerians from buying. Because a lot of Nigerians have been made for a big scheme on our roads or measures really entirely preventable as well. So this is my view about this statement that has been issued by the Road Safety Commission. Okay, how would you you know respond to the reports that a total of road accidents recorded were 3,282 in the second quarter of 2022? I mean it showed progress being that there was a decrease of 1.88% from the first quarter in 2022. I mean shouldn't we be giving you know the accolades to the agency? I don't really believe the statistics that these people push out. This Nigeria, 200 million people, 36 states and the FCT, your accounting accident of 3,000, that should be our daily accident count. Maybe perhaps what they consider an accident is different from what I would view as an accident. For me, I would view on a platter man hitting somebody or pulling with his passenger or boat as an accident. It is indeed an accident. When another car or hit another car or hit the predictor, it's an accident. I need to think about Nigeria as big as we are, as popular as we are, that you are not going to have 3,000 of state accidents around the country on the daily basis. Then if you are not being honest with the statistics, so if the road safety commission is saying there were 3,000 accidents in the quarter and all of that, what statistics are dodgy? They are dodgy because the road conditions of Nigeria have not improved. The vehicle quality has not improved. The driver quality has not improved. From what factor will exactly mitigate against accidents in Nigeria? There is nothing. As I am speaking to you now, there are people who are driving for the first time in their life, first time, very first day of driving and they are on a major road, major road without even a sign on their vehicle. That is how it is in Nigeria. SPS like the United Kingdom where I live, before you are licensed to ground, you must take three different examinations. You take an examination for the theory, take an examination for the simulator with a different perception and then take an examination for the practical in the road. Before you take that examination, you must go to driving school so that at the end, between the government issues to license, you must be competent. There are people that have written an examination for 10 years and they cannot qualify as the driver. So those who are on the road are very competent. They understand the rules of the road and therefore it is like every driver is a component and they understand each other. All that in Nigeria where I talk about anybody can get into a vehicle to get onto the road. So if the road safety is not taking action to enforce driver license for this car, and we haven't fixed our road and we have not made any policy about the quality of the vehicle that we are on our road, what can we do before we get to them? So that's the strategy. That's my view. Mr Agoli, a very interesting example of comparison with what pertains in the UK where it's so hard, like you said, to be licensed as a driver. I also equally know people who have been their whole lives, people in their 30s and 40s, they've not passed that exam, they're not driving. What role do the citizens, the drivers on our roads have to play in the accident? Yes, please. Mr Agoli, are you there, please? All right. Sorry about that. Apologies for that. Yes. What role do the drivers on our roads in Nigeria have to play in all of this? I mean, sometimes on my way to work, I have to get down off the car to control traffic because someone who is not supposed to drive against traffic or we call one way, that's put his head there, and then some other people who are queuing for fuel, it's crazy. You have to beg people to do the right thing so that traffic can flow. I'm sure you, at one point, may have had to come down to control traffic. So do we also have, in terms of accident, not traffic congestion, but accidents, do we have an attitude that makes the problem worse? Okay, so anytime I have conversation with people, they say that Nigerians are wrong, they speak to you. Nigerians have a traditional problem that we are our own enemies, we don't do the right thing and all of that. I disagree with them again and again. Why do that is that? We mistake the sanity, we see in other places that we are arriving in New York now and you see that people see red light, they stop, they are looking for spilling, they are not packing anyhow, you know, and all of that. We mistake that to mean that the people's attitude is good, that the people on their own are behaving well. If it's not correct, the truth of the matter is that the New York Police Department has put a potential in place who gets to you if you break the traffic rules. If you beat that traffic light, there's a camera there that takes a picture of you and only in a matter of days, you will see the full force of the New York Police Department at your doorstep in the letter. That letter can't be made by the country in prison, it can't handle its work. Implement the same thing in Nigeria and Nigerians will even obey these far better than the New Yorkers are doing now. God made man in the wrong with the law. We do also have Christians who understand the set. One, in the garden of Eddard, God made man. Two, God gave man the law. Three, man broke the law. Four, God got consequence management. Law enforcement into the garden of Eddard. Places like Nigeria that are not doing well. We are doing the first thing, we're doing nothing about the court. When you go to places like Canada, France, UK, Germany, they are doing the fault. That law enforcement, that consequence management, the stronger it is, the more sane its society is. So if you are here in London today and you see how well people are behaving, the Metropolitan Police have got cameras with all the people watching the people. Watching you, you mess up, you see the government. That is the problem in Nigeria. We have also already got our individual sovereignty to leaders. But the leaders are not doing their job. Show me the cameras so we don't want people in Nigeria. People be the traffic light and don't cut me. And therefore, why would they forbid me? If you remove the cameras of New York City, we are not going to New York. You can break anybody on that. Remove the camera and the Metropolitan Police from London Road and everybody will be beating the traffic light there. So we just want government to do their work. Well, let's quickly talk about what we can do as a people. And those who are road users, everyone, because all hands must be on deck at the end of the day, now, vividly for the first quarter in 2022, the report from the MBS that 1,834 persons lost their lives in 3,345 road accidents that happened in three months. So we are looking for the first quarter of January, February and March. Well, moving forward, what exactly do you think, especially at this period, because people are going to travel and you can't tell people not to travel. A lot of people will still use the roads and what have you, other means of transportation. But I'd like to ask you, what kind of practice and behavior should stakeholders, those who are passengers and those who are controlling these vehicles, engage in to ensure that at least the debt rate actually reduces? Yeah, well, what I would like to advise, but as we went up in the first week by a period, is that yes, we don't have the job to do, but drivers also have their own job to do. They're something that is called defensive engineering. You look after yourself. You take everybody on the road that's not knowing anything. You are the only one sitting on the road. And you have both to do something. We have to try safe, because some of the drivers who have on the road are sometimes wonder if they have kept the origin of their lives at home and they are driving with a motor purple. Because the kind of dangerous overtaking that you see, the kind of speedy that you see, you know, if you are in society, the government has speed cameras. They have speed cameras on the road. If you over speed, they know. But in Nigeria, we don't have these things. So people should just take the responsibility for themselves. Yes, you are traveling for a specific period, but arrive safe. Arrive in one piece. You have a family that is looking after you, you have your life. And then you have the lives of other road users, because a lot of accidents that people experience is not their fault. It is a road who wants to do them or something. So we need to, on our own, also, play safe, especially during this period, so that if we take you three hours to drive from Lagos to Badon, so we eat, why are you trying to make it in 30 or 45 minutes and then lose your life or involve yourself in an accident in the process? So this will be my advice to put a motor on the road during this specific period. Yes, the government is not there, they let us take responsibility and keep ourselves safe. Yeah, but in the case of speed limit, because there's a measure of how you should drive. Speed limit for when you are driving within the city and when you are actually driving outside. We're talking about the highways and then the major roads within the city. So what else can government do at this point in time? Do we need government to have the officials on the road to ensure that people are not driving beyond speed limit? What exactly can be done? The government just has to figure out what, you know, there's a systemic failure, as far as driver licensing, motor licensing is contained in Nigeria. Like in the UK, every vehicle that is more than three years old must go for MOT. That MOT is the process where you check the vehicle and verify that the vehicle is capable of being on the road. The same way I already described the driver licensing process. When we have to play Nigeria, we have all these processes. We have all the laws. People who are taking on jobs to do these things, we must go ahead and do their job. There has to be a process to know if someone is licensed to drive on the road or not. And there must be a process that you must go to the mill and pass your driver licensing examination before you are licensed to drive on the road. These rules belong to the government. And only the government has the responsibility to certify people to operate on the road. That is the way it happens. And government in Nigeria has to begin that. You know, it's never late. If I admit they start today, they are aligned and we take in this portion. Because driving is a very dangerous activity. In driving, you can do that immediately. I think like in a split of a second. And once you make that mistake, that is the problem for me. It's not like when you are in the mountains, you make a mistake on paper counseling. So elsewhere, the government protects the lives of those who are on the road. We are not saying that in Nigeria. We need to begin to do that. All right. Nika Gule, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. All right. And we will be taking a break now. While we're here, we talk about more issues looking at what the House of Representatives has to say about the CBN governor and his invitation to answer questions on the CBN's policies. We have a break. We'll be right back. Stay with us.