…As Nigeria records 25,468 cases
…FRSC, VIO should be disbanded over high fatalities – Stakeholders
By Oluseye Ojo
In Nigeria, the shocking statistics of road traffic crashes (RTCs) tell a story of despair and negligence. The once vibrant roads have become arteries of peril.
Over a staggering 30-month period, the country has witnessed 13,340 fatalities.
The roads that once connected its sprawling cities and distant villages now seem more like a deadly roulette for the desperate souls traversing them.
It is a silent crisis that has sparked outrage and calls for drastic measures, raising serious questions about the responsibility of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs).
The alarming trend was played up in a recent public opinion poll conducted by Saturday Sun, which revealed widespread discontent with the agencies tasked with overseeing road safety.
Respondents expressed anger at the FRSC and VIOs, insisting that if these bodies continue to fail in their mandates, they should be disbanded altogether. They decried the current approach to traffic safety management in the country.
Grim statistics
From January 2023 to June 2025, Nigeria recorded a crippling casualty figure of 180,460 individuals that were involved in road crashes, which occurred on average almost every day.
The year 2023 alone saw 10,617 road crashes, involving a total of 70,092 persons. A total of 5,081 lives were claimed by the accidents, while 31,874 persons were injured.
The trend tragically continued into 2024. A total of 70,530 persons were involved in 9, 570 road crashes, resulting in 5,421 deaths.
Within the first six months of 2025, many lives have also been lost.
The Corps Marshal of FRSC, Shehu Mohammed, reported officially on Thursday that a total of 5,281 crashes occurred between January and June, this year.
He added that the RTCs involved 39,793 people, with 2,838 lives lost, while 17,818 lives were rescued.
According to him, the figures represented a 3.9 per cent increase in crashes and a 2.2 per cent rise in fatalities when compared to the same period in 2024.
He stated further that the total number of people involved in road crashes increased by 8.9 per cent.
In 2022, the figures obtained on RTCs showed that there were 13,656 crashes, involving 45,348. A total of 6,456 people reportedly lost their lives.
A report also revealed that between 2016 and 2021, a total of 32,617 persons lost their lives to road accidents, while 65,053 persons were also injured. This means at least 49,575 persons died in road traffic crashes from 2016 to 2024, which is a period of nine years.
Nigerians would not forget in a hurry the tanker explosion in Niger State, on January 18, 2025, where 86 persons were burnt to death and dozens others were injured, while scooping fuel from a tanker that fell.
A report from FRSC stated that a total of 175 road traffic crashes occurred along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in the first quarter of 2025, which led to 393 injured persons the killing of 73 persons in 1,271 road traffic crashes.
Safety officers focus more on private vehicles than more dangerous trucks, others
Investigations have consistently pointed to preventable causes behind the accidents. Faulty brakes, worn-out tyres, overspeeding, reckless overtaking, and sudden tyre bursts are common causes.
Yet, despite the revelations, many users find the primary focus of road safety authorities fixated on ensuring private vehicle compliance, while less attention is afforded to commercial buses and heavy trucks, which often represent a greater danger on the roads.
Bad state of roads
As gathered through observations and conversation, the dismal condition of Nigeria’s roads compounds the severity of the situation. Across the nation, potholes, missing manhole covers, and absent signage have become lethal obstacles in themselves.
The crumbling infrastructure not only invites accidents but amplifies the risks presented by careless driving and poorly maintained vehicles.
Risk of mechanical failures
It was gathered that a substantial number of vehicles operating on Nigerian roads are life-threatening death traps. Also, vehicles equipped with ineffective braking systems or tyres that are bald may present a logical cause for concern. Recurrent themes of negligence in vehicle maintenance have bubbled to the surface, with only sparse awareness campaigns from authorities attempting to shed light on how to keep vehicles roadworthy.
Recklessness of speeding and overtaking
Exceeding speed limits and wrongful overtaking have also been identified as rampant behaviours that have fostered a culture of recklessness on Nigeria’s roads.
Commercial drivers, particularly those of buses and trucks, have often been accused of being the worst offenders. The allegation against them is that many of them have been blatantly disregarding speed regulations.
The actions, described as reckless, have reportedly been compounded by an alarming lack of effective traffic law enforcement, which allows such dangerous behaviours to flourish unchecked.
Tyre bursting catastrophe
Some of the most probably underreported threats to road safety is the sudden tyre bursts, which have claimed countless victims each year.
It was discovered that elevated temperatures alongside poorly maintained tyres usually increase the risk of the potentially catastrophic failure. Stakeholders stressed the importance of public awareness campaigns on proper tyre maintenance to avert tragic outcomes.
Vehicles without mirrors
Critical stakeholders also raised concerns over disconcerting observation on the alarming number of public transport vehicles, particularly intra-city buses, that operate without side mirrors. Such vehicles are operated dangerously by drivers, who often revert to dangerous head movements for rear-view checks. The practice, alongside a high rate of motorcycles and tricycles without proper visibility measures, dramatically increases the chances of collisions.
Seatbelt compliance
Despite the obvious benefits of seatbelts, many commercial buses ignore the basic safety requirement.
Reports have indicated that on major routes, including the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, compliance is shockingly low.
Passengers are often left to fend for themselves, and drivers evade responsibility through creative contrivances – like asking passengers to ‘fake belt-use’ – to avoid penalties.
Fuel tanker and container accidents
From 2009 to 2024, research indicated alarming statistics: at least 169 major accidents with 1,613 fatalities attributed to fuel tankers.
Every year, incidents like the tragic 86-death accident in Niger State could have probably shown how perilous the tanker vehicles could be. Likewise, container trucks have crushed lives and livelihoods of many people.
Mr Ademola Akande, a commercial driver, plying the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, told Saturday Sun: “For me, I own my bus and I take care of it very well because it is my source of income.
“In fact, our transport union has taken up the responsibility of checking our vehicles every morning, especially tyres and brake oil. We don’t manage brake and majority of us are using light truck tyres because they don’t just burst on motion.
“But what is giving us a serious concern is the way containers have been falling on cars and buses. It is part of safety standards that every container must be fastened with special ropes to the base of the truck. But many truck drivers don’t obey that rule. Once the container is put on a truck, the driver is ready to go.
“These people will pass through checkpoints mounted by law enforcement officials. Have they been looking the other way and allowing them free passage?
“I must say that such containers constitute great dangers on our highways. Something must be done urgently to arrest the situation.”
The Corps Marshall of FRSC, Shehu Mohammed, said: “It is pertinent to emphasise that out of the total fatalities that occurred in 2024, 411 deaths, representing 7.6 per cent of the total deaths, were not primarily caused by the crashes but a secondary factor, which is the very monster we are fighting today: scooping of fuel from fallen tankers.”
Weird vehicles for smuggling
Ever travelled along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway as well as Badagry-Seme Road? It is not uncommon to see vehicles that smugglers have deliberately recreated with weird designs.
They are mostly used for cross-border smuggling in many of the places where Nigeria shares borders with other countries, including the Badagry axis.
The smugglers have built compartments inside the vehicles for their smuggling business.
The backside of the vehicles would have been raised and reinforced to have additional capacity to carry contraband into and outside the country.
A resident of Ajara, Badagry, Lagos State, Mr Wasiu Kareem, told Saturday Sun: “For many, if not all of us living in this area, the cars that smugglers have been using for their business are no longer strange to us. We see them almost every day.
“The vehicles are locally-reconstructed ones. The suspensions of the vehicles, I think, are relatively re-designed to have an extreme lift. This suspension usually raise the rear end of the weird vehicles so it would be higher than the front end. This will prevent the backside of the vehicles from touching the ground after they have been loaded with goods. This will make them have a smooth ride on rough terrain.”
But investigation revealed that it is not every load carried by the weird vehicles that is contraband.
However, critical stakeholders have begun to ask questions on why such strange vehicles are allowed on the roads by the operatives of FRSC and VIO.
A source within one of the law enforcement agencies said the people behind operations of the weird vehicles being used for smuggling are untouchable because they are deadly.
“You cannot just impound their vehicles. If you do, they will track you down, even to your house, and deal with you. So, what do you expect us to do? We don’t want to die. We also have wives, children, and parents to take care.
“But we can still challenge them, and we can do this through a special task force. In our agency, we don’t use guns. These people doing smuggling business have guns.”
Urgent reforms needed
The practice of Vehicle Inspection Office of issuing roadworthiness certificates without robust inspections has been criticised as woefully inadequate. Stakeholders have suggested that comprehensive and thorough assessments, addressing braking systems, lights, and overall vehicle function should be made mandatory.
They called for increased scrutiny of commercial vehicles, which significantly contribute to accident rates, and echoed across stakeholder discussions.
A private car owner, who introduced himself as Temitope Adeboyin, stated: “Every one of us is concerned about implementation of safety rules on the roads. You will discover that FRSC officials hardly check commercial vehicles. Just stay for about 30 minutes at a check point mounted by FRSC officials, you will discover that over 98 per cent of vehicles they will stop will be private vehicles.
“They have only be stopping commercial vehicles that carry loads they are not supposedt to carry. From January to June 2025, let FRSC provide evidence of how many commercial and private vehicles that have paid fines to the covers of the government. Then, you will know the reality of my position.
“A person may be in a private vehicle. But a commercial vehicle always ferries many people. You will agree with me that many private vehicle owners have been maintaining their vehicles better than majority of commercial vehicles. The only exceptions among commercial vehicles are the cars and buses owned by private transport companies that ply long distances.
“What I am saying is that there should not be sacred cows in enforcing highway codes. The purpose of enforcing the traffic rule should not be to only generate revenue for the government and personal gains. It is to ensure there is safety on our roads.”
It was further gathered that to restore trust in road safety authorities, greater accountability, transparency in operations, and regular audits are essential.
The Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Oyo State Council, Ademola Babalola, also made contributions to the discourse. He said: “There is a compelling need for surprise checks to foster a culture of enforcement, where noncompliance is not an option. A situation, whereby checks are done for the purpose of generating money and not for safety on the roads is unacceptable.”
He described the situation on Nigeria’s roads as critical. He added that lives hang in the balance as preventable accidents dominate the landscape.
“The time for half-measures is long gone. With a collaborative approach and a commitment to ending this tragedy, Nigeria can finally aspire for a future where road safety is non-negotiable, where the blood-soaked statistics transform into tales of saved lives and journeys free from fear. Only then can the dream of safe roadways become a tangible reality for all Nigerians,” Babalola added.
A car owner, John Alabi, stated: “The road safety crisis in Nigeria requires comprehensive action, including public awareness campaigns, stringent enforcement, and infrastructural improvements.”
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