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Nigeria records significant injury, mortality from auto crashes — Perm Sec

Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, said on Wednesday that Nigeria has been recording a significant number of injury and mortality from road traffic crashes. Oyo-Ita said this in a speech delivered at the opening of 3-day international conference with the theme: “Roadmap to Safe, Efficient and Sustainable Road Transportation…
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Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, said on Wednesday that Nigeria has been recording a significant number of injury and mortality from road traffic crashes.

Oyo-Ita said this in a speech delivered at the opening of 3-day international conference with the theme: “Roadmap to Safe, Efficient and Sustainable Road Transportation in Nigeria.”

According to her, the conference should generate deep discussions from the technical presentations made by researchers and stakeholders on issues of road safety and national importance.

“The conference is a gathering of local and international intellectuals intended to disseminate research results and stimulate research activities at Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) and other stakeholder institutions.

“NBRRI should be commended for partnering and collaborating with other relevant stakeholders in the building and road construction sector to examine national challenges of safety, efficiency and sustainability of the sector.’’ Oyo-Ita said.

She, however, appealed to the stakeholders in the power sector to strive to ensure stability in the power supply so that the roadmap could become a reality.

She said for the agency to achieve its vision of safety in road transportation, constant power supply was required to facilitate street lightening and traffic lights control that engender safety on the roads.

In his remark, Chief Dele Okeya, Chairman, NBRRI Governing Board, said the focus of this year’s conference was apt considering the dire need to make our roads safer.

“I am certain that this year’s conference will be highly qualitative, robust and comprehensive in terms of paper presentations.

“It is expected that at the end of the forum there will be concrete and implementable resolutions, which will ensure a vast improvement in the safety standards of road transportation,” he said.

The board chairman, however, urged the new government to provide adequate funding for NBRRI and other research agencies in the country to ensure that Research and Development drives our economy.

In a goodwill message, Prof. Mohammed Jibrin, Director-General, National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI), said inadequate transportation was a constraint to a nation’s ability to utilise natural resources.

He explained that distribution of food, finished goods and integration of manufacturing and agricultural sectors were dependent on good road infrastructure.

Jibrin stressed the need to maintain and improve on the existing road transportation infrastructure and to build new infrastructure for the generation of national wealth.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 2015 conference is the second NBRRI conference on road transport and is sponsored by the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).

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