By Francesca Hangeior
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRS) inter-agency Joint Task Force (JTF) has apprehended 362 trailers conveying 5,169 passengers on different highways across the country.
The FRSC spokesman, Olusegun Ogungbemide, said this in a statement on Monday in Abuja.
Recall that the inauguration of the inter-agency Joint Task Force was held on March 23, 2024 in Kaduna State.
Ogungbemide explained that the joint task force comprised of the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, State Traffic Management Agencies and transport unions.
According to him, the JTF took off its operation in Niger, Bauchi, Taraba and Kaduna states and later extended to some notorious corridors of the Southern part of the country,
”The inter-agency JTF successfully arrested as at today, a total of 362 trailers loaded with 5,169 passengers hanging on top of goods and animals.
”As part of the operations, the JTF dropped more than 3,530 passengers who were mandated to take alternative vehicles designed for conveying passengers.
”This is aside the aggressive sensitisation and advocacy campaigns going on across board.
”Irrespective of these efforts, most of these commuters still disregard the sensitisation campaigns and travel to their destinations using these trailers as means of conveyance.”
He explained that the corps had risen to the challenge of confronting bad road use behaviour on all fronts in the last couple of months.
He said this had led to a high level partnership between the FRSC leadership, various transport unions, security agencies, as well as state traffic management agencies.
This, he said was to give holistic approach to enforcing compliance against the use of trailers as passenger vehicles.
He quoted the Corps Marshal as calling on leaders at all levels to compliments the FRSC’s effort in bringing the deadly road traffic violations to a halt by sensitising their subjects further.