By Abbanobi -Eku Onyeka
The Accident Prevention and Rescue Initiative (APRI), has urged the 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to urgently establish functional Emergency Response Centers (ERC), to improve rescue outcomes for road traffic accident victims. The group said the centers should cover roads under state and FCT control.
APRI also called for the creation of State Road Traffic Safety Councils, SRTSC, to drive policy formulation, delivery, and professional standards for road safety operatives. The demands were contained in a press statement signed by APRI Executive Secretary, Ambassador Fidelis Nnadi, and made available to journalists in Abuja.
Nnadi said most untimely deaths in Nigeria occur within the “Golden Hour,” the first 60 minutes after a crash. He noted that many states currently lack the capacity to respond within that window, which limits survival chances for victims.
According to him, about 70 percent of deaths from road accidents, fires, and medical emergencies happen because help arrives late. He added that an ERC with 24/7 dispatch, ambulances, and fire trucks can cut response time from two hours to 15 minutes in urban areas, a difference he described as critical for accident victims, pregnant women, and cardiac cases.
The APRI chief argued that an ERC would also coordinate all first responders from one point. He said the FRSC, Police, Fire Service, NEMA, hospitals, and volunteer groups currently respond separately with little communication. An ERC would operate as a “One Call, One Command” center, he said, where dialing 112 or 767 would dispatch police, ambulance, fire, and hospital teams at once.
On the second demand, Nnadi said 90 percent of road crashes occur on state and FCT roads in cities and outskirts, yet many states do not regularly review or implement road traffic safety policies. He said the gap has stagnated road safety efforts and left large portions of the road network without adequate coverage.
He noted that the Federal Road Safety Corps cannot cover all state and FCT roads alone, and its work should be complemented by state operatives focused on prevention and crash reduction. He added that while FRSC’s mandate covers federal highways, crash prevention must be a shared responsibility across federal, state, and LGA roads, including school zones and intra-city routes.
According to Nnadi, a State Road Traffic Safety Council would provide policy guidelines for state ministries of transport, support new bills, and review existing regulations for implementation by operatives. He said the councils would entrench data-driven crash prevention and strengthen administration of road safety efforts at the state level.
He also highlighted data gaps. He said most states cannot track where crashes occur in real time to enable timely rescue, a situation he described as exposing lapses in protecting road users. A State Road Traffic Safety Council, he said, would support a State Crash Data Bank that collates information from FRSC, Police, VIOs, hospitals, and other sources for effective policy design.
Finally, Nnadi said ERCs would help reduce fatalities linked to traffic and road crimes. He cited Lagos, Anambra, and Delta as states with high crash rates and incidents such as “one chance” robberies and kidnappings. He argued that ERCs equipped with GPS-tracked ambulances, rescue vehicles, and CCTV integration can reach scenes faster and deter extortion by law enforcement.
