The Nigerian Road Safety Partnership has completed a two-day road safety awareness and capacity building workshop for residents of Abuja.
The workshop, which was sponsored by Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited, was aimed at training users on how to manage and apply caution when using Nigerian roads, especially those in the Federal Capital Territory.
The National Coordinator, NRSP, Ms. Wabotem Ene, said the group and SPDC decided to embark on the initiative as no one sector could improve road safety single-handedly.
She said, “We believe that it is an area where there is so much work to be done and which we need to focus on together as a country to improve. There is a specific road safety intervention being done by the NRSP in Abuja.
“This is workshop was introduced because we believe that capacity building is one of the bedrocks of real improvement. So, the workshop is aimed at training the communities on road safety measures, for we want champions who will drive road safety in their different areas.”
Ene stated that the initiative was a community road safety partnership, stressing that Shell was working hard to get communities developed.
She said, “As a result, we have done physical improvement on the Moshood Abiola Road and we chose that area based on statistics from the FRSC that there are specific areas that they need intervention.
“We introduced road signs and markings along the road to increase safety.”
The NRSP coordinator said the initiative was a three-year project and expressed the hope that it would be sustained and replicated in other areas.
Participants at the training workshop, according to her, include delegates from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Transport, Federal Road Maintenance Agency, the Nigerian Police and Federal Road Safety Corps.
“When we train them here, we believe they will take it back to people in their respective communities. The training is also going to capture social groups like the market women, youth leaders, commercial drivers and more,” Ene said.
She explained that the trainees were tutored by indigenous and foreign experts, adding that the Global Road Safety Partnership provided technical competence for the programme.
“GRSP is the lead agency for road safety in the world and it is a World Bank initiative, which involves over 200 organisations. including the United Nation,” she added.