The dreaded Ember months – September, October, November and December – are here. During a courtesy visit to the new Anambra State Sector Corps Commander, Joyce Nnennaya Alexander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), the personable officer declared: “I like to say at every time when we’re approaching the Ember months that we have this mentality that there are supernatural forces that cause crashes from September to December. They say people want to suck blood for the end of the year. And they say that most people, because they have prospered, as they are going home to their villages, their village people have prepared for them. They will have crashes on the road or as they are coming back, their village people have seen them and will say – come and return again. And they will have crashes on the road. That’s absolutely not true.”
She noted that I used the word “frenzy” in my introductory remarks, and then stressed: “It’s the frenzy. From September, people begin to realize that the year has actually come to an end and most of them are like, ‘I haven’t even achieved anything’. So they add more efforts. They get so busy. They are running from one place to the other. It’s as if they want to finish up whatever they have not achieved in the past eight months; they want to achieve it within the next four months remaining in the year. So you find out that there is a lot of distraction. Even the pedestrians on the road have a lot of distractions. The driver is over-speeding because he wants to make many trips. If he’s a commercial driver, he wants to make many trips. Even the one that is not a commercial driver, his mind is on so many things. How to make ends meet, where to get this money from and where to get that money from. So both the pedestrian and the driver, every road user – they are all distracted. They are all thinking of one thing or the other and invariably, there will be a crash.”
Corps Commander Joyce Nnennaya Alexander goes on thusly: “Now we also notice at that time there are also plenty of vehicles on the road. Apart from the distractions, we now have more vehicles, particularly when you are getting up to the 15th of December. You find out that people have started travelling. Some people actually travel by the 10th. You’ll notice that there are a lot of vehicles on the road. If there are a lot of vehicles on the road, it presupposes that unless you are careful, you will probably end up bumping into each other if you are not observing the rules of the road, if you are not careful. Because a road that is not overpopulated, if you are driving there, even if you make some mistakes, the mistakes may not be catastrophic. But a road that is suddenly overpopulated, if you make any mistake, you are likely to get into trouble because of that mistake.”
She then offers the advice: “So let me just say this to our people, Ember months are here. We have entered September, but the onus lies on you to know that it’s only the living that is able to achieve whatever you want to achieve for the year. How do you do that? You must concentrate. Remove every kind of distraction once you are behind the steering. Driving entails 100 percent concentration. Once you are on the road, let your mind be focused on the driving. Once you are disturbed, do not go behind the steering. Your life depends on you. The lives of those you are carrying depend on you. The lives of those on the road that you pass depend on you. And as a pedestrian and a normal road user who is walking on the road, once you get on the road, forget all those things about making calls. As you are crossing the road, concentrate on the road. Some people these days, because of the economic situation, a car will be horning for them and they are busy crossing. They are not even hearing it. It is somebody that is alive that will survive this. Stay alive and survive this because I can tell you, everything comes in phases. These things will still pass and Nigerians will still bounce back.”
She explained that it’s not within the constitutional responsibilities of the FRSC to ban people from selling alcohol in the parks, and stressed that the FRSC is empowered to check drunk driving because it is one of those things that cause road crashes. It is the responsibility of the NDLEA to deal with the issue of selling alcohol in the parks, and the FRSC works hand-in-hand with the agency. So while NDLEA is doing their own work inside the parks, FRSC officers are on the streets, on the roads, enforcing.
In the words of Corps Commander Alexander, “We have what we call early morning cry. That early morning cry targets passengers who are leaving early in the morning, mostly to distant locations, on long distance travels. We target them, we talk to them about things they should expect from the drivers because there is what we call passengers’ rights. We talk to them what to expect from drivers, what the driver should do and what he shouldn’t do. And we always encourage them, if you find out that a driver is drunk, you get down, talk to the union there that this guy is drunk. If it’s on the road, watch out for the nearest FRSC vehicle or checkpoint and as they are stopping you, tell them that this guy is drunk.”
The FRSC plans to have a meeting with the union members at the end of the month to flag-off the Ember months’ activities. She revealed that the FRSC is equipped with breathalyzers to check the breath of drunk drivers as is done abroad.
Commander Alexander explained the intricacies of buying expired tyres and advised vehicle owners thus: “There is a place in that tyre that is written DOT. It gives you the day and the month and the year of manufacture of that tyre. Some people are still buying tyres with three figures. That means it was done in 1990s not even 2000. So if you have tyres that you are using that still have three figures, maybe before you got the tyre, nobody has used it. That can even be 20 years ago.”
On managing tyres and engines, she said: “I always tell people – if you keep managing your car, you could manage yourself into the grave.”
She gave out the good news that since she came to Anambra State a month ago the sector has started producing plate numbers. She is keen on media relations and the training and retraining of the FRSC officers.
According to her, “We have what we call RTSSS (Road Traffic Safety Standardization Scheme). RTSSS is a scheme that incorporates any company that has a minimum of five vehicles. We are even bringing it down to two vehicles now. Once you have such a thing, we term it that you are a fleet operator. And if you are a fleet operator, you should be regulated. You should be asked to meet certain requirements for safety.”
Corps Commander Joyce Nnennaya Alexander is a breath of fresh air that will make Ndi-Anambra not to have any fears over the dreaded Embers, and thus fully enjoy the Christmas season in line with the drive of Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, to make Anambra State a pleasurable ultimate destination to travel to.
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