Travellers’ Safety On Highways

The safety of travellers on the nation’s highways has always been jeopardised by the activities of armed robbers and kidnappers. There have been several cases of robbers mounting road blocks and robbing travellers. In some cases, the hapless travellers are made to lie across the highway at night while they are being robbed and trucks run over them.

We expect that these tragic incidents will soon stop with the launch of 44 police patrol vehicles in Abuja on Wednesday by the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar. The vehicles which have been deployed to the major highways across the country should be put to effective use in order to the curb rising cases of armed robbery and kidnapping on some of the major highways.

We expect a 24-hour patrol of the highways, with emphasis on the notorious Ore-Benin axis of the southwest-southsouth road, and the Ijebu-Ode/Shagamu axis. Almost on a daily basis, robbers torment travellers and motorists on these roads. The robbers carry out their attacks both night and day.

As Abubakar rightly pointed out while launching the patrol vehicles, state police commissioners must ensure that the patrol vans are put to proper use in order not to defeat the purpose for which they were procured. We have seen brand new police patrol vehicles become eyesores and unmotorable a few months after they were purchased due to the reckless manner in which they are driven and handled.

In view of the worsening of insecurity in the country and the number of highways that are usually taken over by criminals, the 40 patrol vans are grossly inadequate. More of such vehicles should be procured for effective coverage of all the major highways in the country. No effort should be spared in ridding our highways of criminal gangs. The people cannot continue to be subjected to the twin problems of bad roads and robbery attacks on the roads.