To sustain the good working relationship between Nigeria Police, being the no. 1 security agency, and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the no. 1 traffic safety and management agency, the Heads of both agencies within the zone covering Lagos and Ogun States met yesterday. In his special visit to the FRSC Zonal HQ, Ikeja, the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone 2, AIG Adegoke Fayoade was received by his FRSC counterpart, ACM Ann Oladayo.
The FRSC chief, Ann Oladayo thanked the FRSC Corps Marshal Shehu Mohammed for his giant strides. She assured: ‘We are following suit with your policy thrust. We are making sure that all the things that he has put in place for us to follow, we are doing justice to it.’
Excited about the august visit of the illustrious AIG Adegoke Fayoade and for being a man of integrity, honor, hard work, prayers, dedication, and commitment to the job, ACM Oladayo said: ‘I am happy to work with my brother and boss and my senior. I want to appreciate you especially for coming. When I put a call through to him two days ago to remind him of his visit, he graciously told me that he would come and I’m happy that he came. After now, there will be a lot of transformation between FRSC and the Nigerian Police in Zone RS2.’
‘I call you a ‘Crime Fighting AIG, and I’ve given myself the name of a ‘Crash Fighting ZCO’. I believe that by the time this year is winding down, we’ll see a lot of remarkable achievements being done between the Nigerian Police and the Federal Road Safety Corps.’
‘Let me say this, for now, the crashes are reducing. But we know that normally, going by the trend, at this period of the year, there’s a tendency for it to go up.’
‘When we visited you, I laid bare the road map and we agreed that we are going to work together in synergy to make sure that those things are actualized. Going forward from today, 2nd of September, we will start putting all those things into work. To make sure that we actually synergize together with the Nigerian Police. It is in alignment with FRSC 2021 strategic goals. Our vision under my leadership is to establish RS2 as a national model for proactive road safety driven by innovation, technology, stakeholder synergy, and operational excellence. And the focus areas include reduction in road traffic fatalities and injuries; enhanced stakeholder engagement where sister agencies will come together and collaborate so that we achieve the common goal of making our roads safe; and then have a technology-enhanced traffic data and enforcement’, Ann Oladayo said.
‘We also want to iron some things out. The foremost is making sure that traffic crashes are reduced to the barest minimum. By virtue of being at Zone 2, RS2 comprising Lagos and Ogun states, we have the largest volume of traffic on this axis, coming from Ibadan down to Lagos, we also have these heavy trucks coming in, carrying both goods and passengers.’
‘We are already in Ember month, and you know, like I used to tell my staff, all the things that people were not able to achieve at the beginning of the year, they want to achieve within the next four months of the Ember and as such, we have a lot of people coming in on our roads. We are not resting on our oars at the Federal Road Safety Corps, we want to make sure that as much as we can, we reduce traffic crashes on our highways, in line with the policy thrust of the Corp Marshal and also to compliment our President’s efforts on the safety of lives and properties.’
‘We want to intensify our operations on the highway, and we cannot do that without the collaboration and synergy of the Nigerian Police. We want the Police to collaborate with us in enforcing the law to make sure that these truck drivers are law-abiding. We want Police to collaborate with us to have joint patrols especially during these ember months. We don’t want death on our highways.’
‘We have our Fleet RTTSS, Road Traffic Safety Standardization Scheme in FRSC, that will bring them together to lecture them on the need for them to be law-abiding and to make sure that they follow the rules and regulations guiding the roadways. Particularly, I want us to have a workshop, after that, we go out to form the squad of the Nigerian police and the FRSC, to make sure that we go out there sensitize the public.’
‘We want to appreciate the second tier of the Federal Road Safety Corps, the special marshals who do a lot with us. And I will still come to their own issue, because they also made complaints. We need to have proactive measures in place, sir. We want to appeal to you that immediately after now, we’ll constitute a committee for the FRSC to work together with the Nigerian Police on what we need to do. They want you to appreciate them, they are also part of us. sometimes when they are on patrol, the Nigerian Police don’t give them permission. They carry the same function and power as the regular Marshals, it’s just that they are volunteers and are not being paid any salary. Also, our station officers report that DPOs don’t give them data to work with. We want to appeal to you, sir, that your DPOs should give our men at the station offices data requested at the end of the month. Thank you very much, my Crime-Fighting AIG’, the crash-fighting ZCO concluded.
In his response, the AIG of Zone 2,.AIG Adegoke Fayoade, ‘I am happy to be here to pay an official visit to the Zonal Commander here and appreciate my sister who belongs to the Police family, the husband is a Police officer and the children are Police family. When she visited my office the last time, I promised her that I would return the visit. The first female zonal commander of FRSC RS2. I’m absolutely proud of her.’
‘When she came, she noted that we cannot ensure safety and security in this country if we do not partner with ourselves. We need to put strategies in place that will make our role very safe and secure. I want to encourage her to continue to do more.’
‘Activity is always on a high scale in the Ember months. There is a lot of work to assure members of the public that we work together and that we have a hitch-free and accident free season. We don’t need to emphasize the fact that this one is against that, we need to put all hands together. We need interactions on the road, and it has to be regular so that we can understand and get the best’, AIG Adegoke Fayoade highlighted.