By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The Senate has confirmed the nominations of the Corps Marshall of Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Osita Chidoka and a Political Science Lecturer at the University of Abuja, Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, as Ministers.
The two nominees, whose names were forwarded to the Senate by President Jonathan last week for confirmation, will fill the vacant slots of Anambra and Kwara states in the federal cabinet.
Chidoka, in his response to question on how he met the FRSC in 2007 when he was appointed as the Corp-Marshall, and how the traffic regulatory agency is now, disclosed that within his seven years in office as the FRSC boss he was able to expand and open the organization to the world in terms of personnel, infrastructure training facilities and operational vehicles.
“From 11,000 staff, 170 patrol cars, 17 ambulances and a budget of N6.5billion in 2007, today, we have 800 patrol cars, 20,000 personnel, N30billion budget, and 375 V-Sat equipment connecting all the units of the FRSC across the country to the headquarters”, he said
He added that with automation of the operations of the commission, the agency now has ability to know the number of deaths resulting from accidents in the country as well as the states with the highest crashes and fatalities.
He noted that the FRSC is now a data and knowledge driven organization, a situation that has made some West African countries like Ghana and Sierra Leone to seek help from the organization to set up similar organizations.
He said it took an average of eight weeks for communications to pass from unit commands and back when he took over, but has reduced to a few minutes through internet connections now.
“The value we have brought to the FRSC is that it is a data-driven organization. It is a knowledge-driven organization. The FRSC of today is ISO9001 certified. The law enforcement agency in Africa with an ISO9001 certification and the fourth in the world”, he stressed.
Sulaiman also rose up to the occasion, when screened by the Senate by responding well to most of the questions fired at him ranging from possible solution to the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the Northern part of the country to the road map of arresting the dwindling standard of Education in Nigeria as a University Lecturer.
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