Report: Nigeria Records 79,875 Road Accidents in Three Years

• Ogun leads with 6,422, Jigawa is least with 725

Not less than 79,875 cases of road accidents were reported in the country in the last three years. 

Official documents obtained by the Economic Economic Confidential showed that the figure represents the total accidents that occurred between 2013 and 2015.

Out of this figure, a total of 29,494 occurred in 2013 with 13,021 cases reported as fatal, 8,917 cases were reported as serious, while the balance of 7,556 cases were designated as minor according to reports obtained by this magazine with careful analysis.

Ogun State however led all other states in the reported cases of road crashes with 6,422, followed by Lagos State with 6231, Kano came third with 4,869, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is number four with 4,700  cases while the number five position was grabbed by Edo State with 3,499.

The state with the least number of cases of road crashes in the year under review was Jigawa  with 725. 

In 2014,  the reported cases of accidents amounted to 25,427 out of which 11,665 were fatal, 7,561 were serious and 6,201 cases regarded as minor. The figure for 2014 was however, lower than that of 2013 by almost 4,000 due to road traffic management sensitisation carried out by the combined efforts of both the Police and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).

In 2015, the total road accidents recorded  was 24,954, again below the figure for 2014. Out of this figure, 11,507 cases were fatal, 7,390 were regarded serious while the balance of 6,057 were treated as minor.

Investigations by the Economic Intelligence magazine further revealed that the total number of persons involved in accidents within the period under review reached an all time high of 49,867.

Of this figure, 15, 011 persons were killed in the road crashes while the remaining  34,856 were injured.

Of those killed in the accidents, 5,539 were for 2013, 4,430 for 2014 while the balance of 5,042 were those for 2015.

Out of the figure of those injured which was 34,856, 12,372 were for 2013, 12,227 was for 2014 while the remaining figure of 10,257 were for 2015!

A careful analysis by Economic Confidential indicate that out of  79,875 reported cases of  accident, reckless driving accounted for 30.3 per cent,  inexperience and mechanical fault accounted for 21.5 per cent while and road defects accounted for 21.1 per cent.

Further search by the investigating team showed that a  motorcycle to motorcycle collision,  motorcycle to vehicle crashes and vehicle to vehicle accidents are the lead types and have resulted in 38.9 per cent, 37.5 per cent and 14.9 per cent respectively of the total of 15,100  deaths recorded within the period of under review.

Furthermore, it was also revealed that heavy duty vehicles, minibuses and taxis accounted for most of the accidents with 94.7 per cent of the total accidents.