“82 percent of vehicles plying Nigerian roads unworthy” – Expert

An expert in transportation and pioneer Vice Chancellor of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ogun State, Professor Kayode Oyesiku has said that 82 percent of vehicles plying Nigerian roads are not road worthy.

Oyesiku spoke in Abeokuta at the sidelines of a workshop organised by Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE).

He equally disclosed that the nation’s road network had taken 95 percent of mobility, noting that there was the need for government to open more ways to reduce concentration on the road.

He, however, called on the Federal government to fastrack the completion of railway and other means of transportation to reduce carnages in the country.

“We are taken too much time in our repairing mechanism in infrastructure particularly the Lagos/Ibadan expressway; it’s taken too much and it’s becoming unsafe.

“The vehicle inspectorate unit along with safety agencies must be empowered.

“The education on the use of the roads should start from the primary schools where students would be inculcated into how to make good use of the road,” he said.

In a paper entitled “governance and road traffic management: Ogun state in perspective” the Secretary to the State government, Taiwo Adeoluwa expressed the state government’s readiness “to change the toga of mortuary state” following incessant road crashes in the state.

He disclosed that the government had constructed 15 flyovers and hundreds of roads as part of moves to reduce accident on Ogun roads.

Adeoluwa admitted that TRACE lacks adequate manpower to “deliver the desired road traffic management goals envisaged in the state.”