The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command, has begun its ember months campaign in the territory to ensure safety on the highways.
The sector commander, Mr Samuel Ochi told the News Agency Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, that the move was aimed at averting accidents on the roads during the ember months which usually witnessed huge traffic.
According to him, the campaign is known as pre-ember month or Operation zero.
“Operation zero normally starts from the peak of the ’ember month through December to early days of January.
“But before we get to that peak of the period, we have what we call “pre ember activities’’ and this actually starts first week of September.
“During this period, we are emphasising public enlightenment and education. We have been to churches, and we are going to mosques and markets,’’ he said.
Ochi said that FRSC had embarked on sensitisation on the roads in collaboration with many agencies.
“We have just done some sensitisation to the public with NEMA, and the Junior Lawyers Association,’’ he said.
Ochi noted that the Corps had various collaborative efforts, adding that it had directed that town hall meetings be held in all the area councils.
According to him, traditional rulers, political leaders, chairmen of area councils are expected to be in attendance to address residents in the FCT on the need to observe road codes.
He said that the corps was doing all it could to make sure everybody was carried along as we all used the roads. .
According to him, the FRSC is also collaborating with hospitals and medical facilities in the FCT.
“You know in the past, we had the challenge of who pays the hospital bills when an accident victim is rushed to the hospital.
“We are ironing all these challenges with the medical facilities to have an emergency attention to accident victims in hospitals that will accommodate them.
“We also have in place what we call hospital follow up which is an arrangement done to follow up accidents,’’ Ochi said.
He said that the follow up is done to know the outcome and correct statistics of accidents during the ember period.
“We are in collaboration with all stakeholders to make sure that we arrive at the statistics we are looking for at the end of the campaign. We want to record Zero fatality this period,’’ he said.
The FRSC boss noted that most accidents were as a result of human attitude to a large extent and not bad roads as was being claimed.
According to him, there are good roads and visibility as far as FCT is concerned.
