Shame on FRSC And greater Shame to the NPF.

I am restraining myself strongly from using profane words against this two institutions. The Nigerian Federal Road Safety Corps and Nigerian police competed on who will bring more shame to their respective organizations last Sunday . I am yet to decide who won in this contest. I will allow you my reader to judge who won.

On that faithful day 5 doctors members of the Nigeria Medical Association Ekiti State Branch and their driver lost their lives on their way to Sokoto for our Annual delegates meeting/Annual general meeting. The sad event took place along the Abuja-Kaduna express way. This threw the Nigerian Medical community into a state of mourning our lost colleagues. As further details emanated on  how the accident happened and how they were rescued, the ugly show of shame by the FRSC and NPF was told of how it took the FRSC all of 40mins to arrive at the accident scene and how they demanded for money to fuel their cars from the victims before they could be conveyed to the nearest hospital. And of how a police man refused to collect the sum offered throwing the cash on the floor till it was complete. Mind you this was from accident victims. Only for the FRSC to issue a statement to say that the cause of the accident was due to over speeding.What a shame!!!!!

This prompted the Dr Folu Ekundare(accident victim) to give the following explanations

"The comment credited to the Sector Head of Operations, Deputy Corps Commander, Salisu Galadunci, of the FRSC is very unfortunate.This is an FRSC that got to scene of the accident more than 40minutes after the accident.This is an FRSC that were reluctant  take us to the hospital claiming they don't have fuel and didn't budge until one of the injured promised to buy fuel for them.

The Deputy Corps Commander was not at the scene of the accident.

Neither himself nor any representative of his spoke to any of the people in the vehicle, 6 of whom myself included survived.The Deputy Corps Commander did not even see the vehicle either at the scene of the accident or at the police station.

 How he jumped to that conclusion is beyond me. The comments is an insult to my dead colleagues and a slap on those of us that survived. For his information this is not a driver we picked off the road to take us for the journey. This is a man that has been working with us for more than 4 years. He is indirectly telling the world that a bus of 12 doctors including several senior consultants could not control a driver we employed and pay salaries to.

 I was in the same vehicle sitting in the row  behind the driver and I checked the speedometer from time to time.

 The bus also makes a beeping sound once the speed exceeds 110km/hr. Let me state categorically that the bus driver was not speeding.

 The FRSC are probably only trying to justify their intention to sell their speed limiting device to Nigerians hence associating every possible accident to excessive speeding. And it is 😔 sad that they would even attempt to use such a sad event to do such.

 Even the police  would not convey the bodies to the mortuary in their van until we parted with 4000naira. I personally dropped 3000naira but the police officer rejected it dropping the money on their vehicle until the NMA chairman Dr Akinbote added 1500naira.

 The second police vehicle that conveyed those of us unhurt and our luggage to join the others to the hospital also had to be topped with 3500naira black market fuel paid for by me".

As if that wasnt enough, the kaduna state NMA Chairman had this to say

"I saw your account of the behaviour of the police. As a matter of fact, for each of the four vehicles of police and road safety, we had to drop 5,000 (total 20,000) for fueling to return to their base. Some of them only collected the monies reluctantly complaining that 5,000 was meagre because they were going to buy from the black market".

 This is the country we live in. This is a country where superb budgetary allocations are made for all these institutions. This is a country that prides itself as the largest black populated country. 

Where is our humanity? Where is our conscience? How did we get to this sordid state that even at the point of death we do not care anymore?

Has the multitudes of violence and death in our country numbed our compassion for one another.?

The actions of these institutions correctly xrays the dept of decay in our polity. Corruption without compassion is a potent recipe for decadence. This is just a tale of one group of persons, i can only imagine what countless Nigerians who have had accidents would have passed through from this group. This attitude from both the FRSC and NPF must be condemned strongly. These institutions must be the face of hope in times of distress.

May God help Us all. May souls of the departed Rest in Peace. Amen.