Boboye Oyeyemi, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, said on Tuesday that the commission’s mobile court jailed five motorists for violating traffic rules during the Christmas celebration.
Oyeyemi said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Onitsha, Anambra State.
He spoke after inspecting traffic flow at both ends of the Niger Bridge between Onitsha in Anambra State and Asaba in Delta State.
The corps marshal also said that over 2,000 others were arraigned before the court set up to prosecute traffic offenders nationwide.
He said: “As at December, about 2,000 offenders were arraigned before mobile courts and I think about five were jailed and only about 15 were discharged.
“But all others were given fines ranging from N1,000 to N10,000.
“The states judiciaries must be commended.
“We have mobile courts in all the states now and throughout the yuletide period we deployed them.
“And I witnessed most of the prosecution and conviction and that is the focus this year (2015).
“More mobile courts will be set up.
“We are not after fines.
“We are after changing the driving habits, deterrence.
“So if people now prefer going to courts, then no problems.
“We are going to do more of prosecution of road traffic offenders in 2015.”
The corps marshal said that the offences of traffic offenders ranged from land violation, over speeding, overloading of passengers, violation of seat belt use, violation of children safety to lack of passengers’ manifest in the vehicle.
Oyeyemi said 14 per cent reduction in road crashes was recorded within the 2014 yuletide period as a result of improved planning and greater service delivery on the part of the corps special and regular marshals.
He said: “We must thank our stakeholders, collaborators, sister security agencies and various state governments for assisting us to make this reduction possible.
“The Federal Government and our supervising ministry, the Ministry of Works, had contributed greatly by ensuring that almost all the roads in the country are in good condition while those under construction or re-construction had been made motorable during this yuletide season.
“For the logistics we got from the World Bank, which we deployed very effectively.
“We thank the World Bank for a wonderful and far-reaching assistance.”
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