Nigeria lost 25,939 people to over 55,000 road accidents that occurred in the country between 2003 and 2007, according to statistics unveiled at the 20th anniversary celebration of the Federal Road Safety Commission in the capital city of Abuja. Some 60% of the victims were aged between 35 and 45, while 85,976 people were injured from the accidents during the period. “Nigeria can ill-afford such colossal waste of human resources,” President Umaru Yar’Adua said at the celebration, where he was represented by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. The disclosure of the high rate of accidents in Africa’s most-populous nation was made on the same day that the Spokesman for the Nigerian Army, Brig.-Gen. Solomon Giwa-Amu, died in a road crash along the Abuja-Kaduna expressway in central Nigeria. Excessive speeding, bad driving habits, poor maintenance of vehicles and bad roads are some of the reasons blamed for the high number of accidents in Nigeria. The FRSC, which started off with so much promise, has been hampered by lack of necessary facilities and political interference to effectively check the road crashes.
