The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi, has ordered the agency’s field officers to crack-down on overloaded private school buses, as part of Federal Government’s organised efforts to minimize road accidents on Nigerian roads involving school kids.

The Corps’ spokesman, Bisi Kazeem, who made disclosed this in a statement on Saturday, March 14th, 2020, said that the Corps Marshal had directed Sector Commanders all over the thirty six (36) states of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, to take possession of any private school bus carrying more than the laid down number of school children in the bus.

According to the statement,

This operation will be carried out in the morning and afternoon when schools close for the day.

Kazeem stated that the crack-down had become very necessary following the deliberate actions taken by school proprietors, their management and the bus drivers to mock stipulated laws, possibly to make some economic gains, at the expense of the lives of the school children driven to and from schools in their buses.

We have tried to enlighten these drivers and the proprietors on many occasions to make them comply with the minimum safety standards on passengers carriage but they kept contravening the laws.

The Corps is championing child safety campaign as it targets to reduce and possibly eradicate all crashes involving school children on our roads,

Kazeem quoted Oyeyemi as saying.

In the same manner, the Corps Marshal directed all drivers who fall in this category nationwide to be retrained, in order to further solidify the expected total safety of school children.

He urged the general public to always tune in to the National Traffic Radio 107.1FM to report any school bus sighted with overloaded school children or emergency or any obstruction noticed on the road for immediate action.

According to the statement:

The station can also be reached through its Social Media Handles as follows; WHATSAPP 08052997848, FACEBOOK TRAFFICRADIO 1, TWITTER @TRAFFICRADIO 1, INSTAGRAM TRAFFICRADIO 1. Or Call the following numbers; GLO 08052998090, MTN 09067000015, and SMS on GLO 08052998012 and the FRSC toll free emergency line 122.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.