THOUGH Abuja, the federal capital city is the place where auto crashes occur more frequently than any other place in Nigeria, Kaduna State is the place where people are most likely to die on the road.

Interestingly, Kaduna state is regarded as the centre of learning in Nigeria because it is home to a number of prestigious institutions, but it is also the state where the people have not learnt to drive safely. 

Data gleaned from the website of Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, show that Kaduna records the highest number of casualties and fatalities from road accidents between 2007 and 2016.

Though over 7000 road traffic crashes occurred in Abuja in the last 10 years, the number of deaths resulting from road accidents in Kaduna is almost twice the number of fatality in the federal capital city.

Between June 30 and July 2, this year, 15 people died in road accidents in Kaduna, according to FRSC.  And in the last one decade, more than 4000 people perished on Kaduna roads.

In contrast, states like Taraba, Bayelsa, Rivers, Abia and Akwa Ibom have the lowest number of fatalities within the period.

FRSC report also shows that the causes of road accidents in Kaduna have little to do with the quality of roads. According to the state’s master plan, Kaduna has a total of 1,573.90km of federal Roads out of which only 29.45 per cent (463.50km) are in good condition,  64.25 per cent (1,011.20km) are in a fair state while 6.30 per cent (99.20km) are in a poor State. 

State-owned roads, on the other hand, comprise 2,133.59 kilometres, out of which only 49.20 per cent (1,049.72km) are in good state, 22.09 per cent (471.25km) are in fair state and 28.71 per cent (612.63km) are in a poor state. But there are states with fewer good roads as well as states with better good roads than Kaduna, but record lower auto crash and fatality.

A 2016 report by FRSC identified speed violation as a major cause of road traffic crashes, followed by loss of control, dangerous driving and poor weather.

Other states where deaths occur on the roads in high number are Kano, Ogun, Kogi and Oyo. It is interesting that Lagos with the highest number of vehicles in the country does not feature among the first ten states with an incident of road traffic deaths.

For instance, the total number of road deaths in 10 years in Lagos is 1,299 while that of Kaduna is 4,025. The cases of auto crash in Lagos within eight years are 3,178 (data for  2010 and 2012 are unavailable), whereas Kaduna is 4,944. For Abuja, the accident cases and fatalities are 7,773 and 2,599 respectively within the same period.

In total, more than 48,000 people have died in over 78,000 road accidents across the country within the last ten years. That is a population far higher than the capacity of the Lagos National Stadium estimated at 45,000  spectators.