Sarah NEGEDU
Traffic and safety officers in the nation’s capital want the FCT Administration to consider stiffer punishment against pedestrians who walk across express roads at the expense of their lives.
The stakeholders, at a meeting with the new director of the FCT Directorate of Road Traffic Services, Dr Abdulateef Bello, noted that many pedestrians shun the use of foot bridges despite them being provided at every major bus stops in the city.
They therefore urge the FCT Administration to push for the enforcement of traffic laws that will check the growing trend of pedestrian bridge violation.
Already, the Divisional Police Officer of Lugbe Police Station, CSP Uhegbu Ugochukwu, says the team will soon start prosecuting those who fails to use the pedestrian bridge along the Airport road given the frequent hit and run cases witnessed in the area.
Ugochukwu pointed that the human traffic along Airport road is very high yet, many people shun the use of pedestrian bridge to cross the express, risking their lives and that of others.
On the activities of commercial motorcycles riders popularly referred to as Okada, the DPO said most of them ride against the traffic thereby causing accident on the highway which results in traffic gridlock.
He urged the minister to ban Okadas along the Airport road, as they constitute security threat and nuisance along the Airport which incidentally, is one of the first point of contact to visitors coming into the FCT.
Similarly, the Chief Road Traffic Officer/Area Commander, Lugbe, Ojo Lawrence urged the administration to look into the issue of okada riders as they constitute nuisances and most times violent when arrested.
According to him, “They are very hostile, when one is arrested others come in their large numbers to free the offender as they often overpower our personnel due to their large numbers and the weapons they carry.”
Meanwhile, the Unit Commander, Federal Road Safety Commission, Lugbe, ACC Ohaeri Osondu, said they have deployed strategy to reduce traffic gridlock on the airport road by posting personnel to man the road both morning and evening during peak periods.
The director, Directorate of Road Traffic Services, Dr Abdulateef Bello, who after the meeting went round to see things for himself, gave commercial motorcycles riders two weeks to comply to the restrictions order.
In his words, “Having engaged with the leadership of the okada group, we will give them two weeks while we continue to carry out the exercise of enforcement and monitoring and then removal of those we see on the highway. After two weeks if they don’t comply, then we will start thinking of how to push the decision to ban.”
