The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) on Tuesday said it recorded 11,672 accidents and 5,448 deaths across Nigeria between January and November 2021.

The spokesperson for the FRSC, Bisi Kazeem, who gave the figures in an interview in Abuja, said the complete information for 2021 was not readily available, as data regarding the numbers of road traffic crashes recorded in the year under review were still being collated.

This, Mr Kazeem said, was because officials of the agency concluded the Operation Zero Tolerance Patrol recently, which was always scheduled for the end of the year, when the entire nation experienced high-vehicular movement.

“That being said, from January to November 2021, there were a total number of 11,672 road traffic crashes recorded across the country.

“Between January to November 2021, 5,448 persons were killed and 33,817 people were injured within the period,” he said.

The spokesperson noted that the corps arrested 564,351 offenders between January and December, as against the 456,652 offenders apprehended in 2020.

Mr Kazeem said that the agency also recorded a total of 626,098 various traffic-related offences in 2021, as against the 507,277 offences recorded in 2020.

On assault against the agency’s officials, Mr Kazeem said to address the issue, one of the steps taken by the FRSC was the introduction of technology-driven monitoring and supervision of the entire patrol operations.

He stated that the agency had in the last quarter of 2021, established and inaugurated the body and car cameras, to be monitored from the Control Room, at the FRSC headquarters.

The spokesperson noted that these cameras had the capacity to cover a reasonable distance and to forestall attacks and also record evidence of such assaults when they eventually occur.

“At the turn of the year 2022, the Corporate Strategic Goal of the Corps is targeted at accomplishing 15 per cent reduction in Road Traffic Crash fatality,” he added.

(NAN)