Falana plans legal action against government for crashes on Lagos -Ibadan Expressway

Poised to mitigate the increasing number of road crashes in the country, the Road Safety Coalition (RSC), a coalition of non-governmental organisations, has called for an inter-agency cooperation, collaboration and coordination of activities among enforcement agencies.

They also seek collaboration of the enforcement agencies in ensuring a structured driver’s licensing process.

For human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), the time is now for the investigation of all road traffic accidents and the prosecution of offending motorists. According to him, the killing of Nigerians on the roads should be stopped or reduced drastically.

While regretting that government has not lived up to its constitutional duties, he stated plans of collecting data on the number of deaths on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway due to the deplorable state of the road, with a view to initiating legal actions against government and others who contributed to the state of the road.

He further called on the Lagos State government to ensure that commercial vehicles in the state are insured so that the lives lost to accidents are not simply wasted.

The coalition, which rose from its national summit in Lagos, with the theme “Road Safety Enforcement in Nigeria: Where Are We?”, called for the use of technology in the enforcement process to reduce direct contact between motorists and law enforcement agencies.

Speaking at the summit held in conjunction with NNPC/Chevron Joint venture, chairman of the coalition, Mr. Patrick Adenusi, noted that despite the huge resources and time devoted by officials on the roads, high volume of chaos still persist. He, therefore, stressed the need to tackle the issue of poor road users for Nigeria to move forward.

The Assistant Corps Marshal, Shehu Zaki, stressed the need for collaboration among relevant stakeholders to proffer solutions to road crashes as well as formulate a framework that will assist each of the agencies in its work in reducing road crashes in Nigeria.

According to him, the corps has done a lot to reduce the number of crashes through the enforcement of speed limits.