Road Safety

‎By Ibrahim Happiness

Every day on Nigerian roads, lives are put at risk not only by reckless driving but also by a transport system that forces heavy-duty trailers and smaller vehicles to share the same lanes and the same dangers. It is a problem visible in plain sight on roads used daily by millions of Nigerians, yet it has never received the urgency it deserves.

Drive from Abuja through Lugbe and Giri, all the way to Gwagwalada, and the evidence is everywhere. Trailers line both sides of the road, some parked, some moving, others broken down in the middle of traffic without warning. Small cars are forced through spaces that should not exist. Motorcycles weave dangerously beside giant wheels. Tricycles take risks next to vehicles many times their size.

And when something goes wrong, whether a tyre bursts, brakes fail, or a driver misjudges, it is rarely the trailer that suffers most. It is the smaller vehicles. It is ordinary people simply trying to get to their destinations.

‎Traffic gridlock along these routes has become routine. Commuters travelling from Abuja to places like Gwagwalada often spend hours trapped in traffic, sometimes late into the night, because trailers block stretches of road, refuse to give way, park carelessly, or are simply too large for the roads they use. Some people sleep in their cars because there is nowhere else to go.

I know this not only through observation but also through painful personal experience that I carry every day in my hand, in my eye, and in my memory.

On a rainy Sunday morning, 11 June 2023, my grandfather and I left home early for church. It was around 7 a.m. The road was slippery, visibility was poor, and, like many Nigerian families, we were simply trying to travel safely.

Then everything changed. A trailer was parked in the middle of the road. Whether it had broken down or been abandoned, I cannot say. What I know is that it sat there in the rain, without warning signs, cones, or visible hazard lights.

A car rammed us from behind. The impact was sudden and violent. My grandfather lost control, and we were pushed into the parked trailer. What followed changed my life forever.

Shards of glass flew into my face and tore my eyeball. My hand was badly broken. In the first moments after the crash, I could not see at all. The pain was intense, but the darkness was worse. Not knowing whether my sight would return is something I would not wish on anyone.

The next day, I underwent eye surgery. Even then, my vision did not return immediately. I spent more than three months in the hospital, undergoing treatment, recovering, and living with uncertainty. My family stood by me, both emotionally and financially, and I remain grateful to them. Slowly, my sight returned. Today, I do not take that blessing for granted.

My hand became another battle. The damage was so severe that surgeons inserted a metal implant to hold the bones together. That implant remains in my hand today. It still causes pain, limits movement, and brings daily discomfort. But I am alive, and that is what I hold on to.

The trailer driver denied responsibility, claiming the vehicle was moving at the time of the crash. It was not. It was parked in the middle of the road. Yet denial was easier than accountability, as is too often the case in trailer-related accidents in Nigeria.

‎That metal in my hand, the surgery on my eye, the months I lost, and the burden my family carried are why I am writing this.

Because my story is not unique, it is one of countless stories that unfold on Nigerian roads every year. Many never make the news. Many families never receive justice. Many lives are permanently altered while the system remains unchanged.

The Lugbe-Gwagwalada road tells this story every day. Like many highways in and around Abuja, it serves workers, students, worshippers, traders, and families. Yet trailers operate there without the infrastructure, discipline, or dedicated space that vehicles of that size require.

The result is chaos so normalised that many people no longer question it. They accept it as the price of travelling in Nigeria, but it should not be.

There is also a serious economic cost. Heavy-duty trailers damage road infrastructure faster than government repair budgets can keep pace with. Their immense weight, especially when overloaded, destroys road surfaces, creates potholes, and weakens road foundations. Billions of naira are spent annually on repairs, much of it due to damage caused by heavy vehicles using roads never designed to withstand such loads.

Yet the idea of dedicated trailer lanes, properly built, clearly marked, and strictly enforced, remains an afterthought rather than an urgent national priority.

Other countries have addressed this challenge. Many highways around the world provide separate lanes for heavy vehicles because planners recognise that vehicles with vastly different sizes, speeds, and stopping distances should not compete for the same space. It is not a complicated policy. It is common sense and saves lives.

Nigeria must now make the same move. Dedicated trailer lanes would reduce accidents, ease congestion, save commuters valuable time, cut road maintenance costs, and protect lives.

No one should carry metal in their hand for life because a trailer was carelessly parked on the road. No one should spend months in the hospital fighting to regain their sight because proper traffic systems are lacking.

This is not a luxury demand. It is not unreasonable. It is a practical, lifesaving measure whose time has long since come. Heavy-duty trailers need their own lanes.

Ibrahim Happiness is a 300-level Strategic Communication student at the University of Abuja and an intern at IMPR. She can be reached at happinessibrahim11@gmail.com.

By Isah Kamisu Madachi

On Thursday, 4th December 2025, my cousin Tajuddeen bade us farewell on his way to Lafia, Nasarawa State. They left early in the morning in a Hummer bus. Around 10 a.m., they had a terrible accident in a town near Bauchi metropolis. All the passengers in the vehicle were badly injured. Tajuddeen, along with the bus driver and two others, instantly slipped into coma.

Other passengers were either with more than one fracture or several wounds. On the evening of 6 December, the driver’s suffering came to an end as he passed away. The following day, another one of the passengers in the coma also died. On 8 December, the third victim in coma breathed his last, leaving my cousin still in the ICU section of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi.

The cause of the accident was tyre failure. While they were on the road hoping to reach Jos in the afternoon, their back tyre burst and the bus somersaulted several times. The primary cause of the tyre failure was actually overload. Coincidentally, as I was on a phone call with a friend, he narrated how another terrible accident occurred close to my hometown as a result of tyre issue which instantly claimed two lives and left others badly injured.

I was really shocked and worried because not long ago, on a trip to Lagos, our own bus was carrying two commercial vehicles in addition to overloaded luggage of passengers and waybills. Even before the vehicles were brought, one had to ask whether humans would still get a seat after such loads were mounted. Lo and behold, the vehicles were arranged in a way that you couldn’t even see them inside the boot.

Last month, on our way back home from Kano, we witnessed another accident around Shuwarin town in Jigawa State. It was a jam-packed hummer bus obviously heading to either Damaturu or Maiduguri. They also had a tyre failure which resulted in several deaths. By the time we arrived at the accident scene, out of more than 20 passengers including the driver, only two people were still alive. The rest appeared lifeless.

If I were to narrate all the road accidents I have witnessed, most of them caused by tyre failure, I would have to write a book of a hundred pages. Road accidents are too many across Nigeria. Less than one week ago, I saw a picture on social media that stirred wide reactions. A commercial bus was overloaded to the extent that if one wanted to go out at a transit point, they had to pass through the boot as the doorway was blocked by bags. Even in the case of an emergency, no one could use the door because luggage completely covered the entrance. Many people commented that this is common in Nigerian motor parks.

When we talk about things that claim the lives of Nigerians, I believe road accidents is of course one of the biggest culprits, even more than insecurity in some cases. Anyone who travels widely by road knows this fact. And most of these accidents are avoidable if only we take transport safety seriously.

To bring to an end or at least reduce the intensity of the problem, we need a comprehensive transport policy that tackles overload and the abuse of luggage space. Parks should be mandated to use dedicated cargo buses. If a passenger’s luggage is above 10kg, it should automatically be transferred to a cargo vehicle, not stuffed into a bus carrying humans. For waybills, there should be separate buses whose only function is to transport goods from one state to another; especially the popular routes between Northern and Southern Nigeria or even within the North along routes like Kano-Borno, Taraba-Kaduna, Abuja-Adamawa and others.

Another important solution is the deployment of safety personnel to every major park. Their only job should be to inspect buses and car tyres to ensure they are in good condition before departure. Once there is no compliance, the driver must not be allowed to go. Of course in Nigeria some people may try to offer bribes to bypass checkpoints. To address that, these safety officers should not be local staff. They should report directly to an independent transport safety unit with strict oversight, rotating officers frequently to reduce compromise.

Still, digital systems can be introduced. Each bus should be scanned and cleared through an electronic checklist linked to a central database. If a bus fails safety checks, it should not receive the clearance code required to leave the park. With this kind of structure, even bribery becomes difficult to offer because safety approval will depend on digital authentication, not an individual officer’s discretion.

Nigeria needs to take road safety as seriously as other deadliest national issues. The number of lives cut short on our roads is heartbreaking. Families are losing loved ones every day due to accidents that could be prevented if we enforce discipline, regulate overload, inspect tyres, and treat transport safety as a matter of policy, not luck. 

Isah Kamisu Madachi is a policy analyst and development practitioner. He wrote from Abuja, and can be reached via: isahkamisumadachi@gmail.com