It was with a heavy heart that I heard about the death of Minister Ocholi and family. It is indeed a tragic news to his immediate family, the Federal Executive Council, the APC-led government, and most especially, the people of Nigeria who lost a first class asset. He would surely be missed.

Beyond Minister Ocholi's death, what many Nigerians did not know was that on the same day more than 100 other people died as a result of car crashes in Nigeria. Using the World Health Organization's recent data, Nigeria has one of the worst road traffic safety record, ranking 149th out of 184 countries studied by the World Health Organization. Why is this so? And what can we do to reduce these fatalities? We can certainly do a lot more to improve safety on our roads. While acknowledging that we all need to play our parts by wearing seat belts, driving within speed limits, obeying traffic signs etc. I would want to point out the most expedient commonsense things the Nigerian government must do to keep all of us safe and reduce this abysmal record.

1. Simple - Fix the roads! It seems to me from the narration about James Ocholi's case, there was a tire burst which led the SUV to somersault. There are many "death traps" on our roads. We have been relegated to being called "expert drivers" only if we develop techniques to dodge pot holes at high speed! I drove from Jos to Abuja recently and saw a Vetra sedan car who had just passed our SUV slip into a pot hole swerved off the road and caught fire. All passengers in the car, numbering about four were tragically burnt to ashes. It was one of the most horrific sights I have seen. It is no fluke that countries in the Western Hemisphere averages 6 per 100,000 fatalities and we stand at about 618 per 100,000 fatalities attributable to road crashes. To digress a bit, maternal mortality in Nigeria is same number as road fatalities, that is about 600 deaths per 100,000 live births, however, that is story for another day. If our government constantly fail to fix our highways, expand them and enforce traffic rules on its usage, the numbers would only go up, as population increases.

2. Paramedics/Road side emergency response: An image that tells the whole story, was the horrific image of Minister Ocholi's body covered with leaves. Most times during accidents like this all you see is a crowd gathered, with their hands on their heads muttering things like "Jesus!" "Chineke!" "This life!", others get busy with fanning the victims of the accidents. Some even get themselves entangled with the accident victims getting stained with their blood and carrying them carelessly sometimes even inadvertently severing a fractured C4 or C5 spine and killing the victim. My point is, we don't even have a clue of what first aid it. One would have thought that with the Boko Haram insurgency, the government would have created a program to deal with bomb and road fatalities. None of that exists. There is just nothing. According to the American Society for Orthopedic and Trauma Surgeons, over 50% of road traffic accident victims can survive if they get medical attention between 7 - 10 minutes. Are FRCS trained in advanced trauma and life support? Do their vehicles have facilities for emergency transfusions, minor surgical procedures on sight etc? This must change. And if the Buhari government and the Minister of Health seeks to gain any mileage in the CHANGE agenda, Minister Ocholi's death should at least spur some form of political will to change the status quo.

3. Hospitals: It was said that the Minister's wife who was in critical condition, and was rushed to the near by hospital, called Doka Hospital. As someone described the hospital to me, "that hospital is a S***t hole, it is worse than a refuse bin". We are good in building new buildings, but bad with building systems. The state of our health care is so dysfunctional, that even if you go to a hospital the broken system either do not even have any capacity whatsoever to help, some who have very little capacity, drive their patients away in the name of referrals. A survey done just last year by USAID on 15 Nigerian teaching hospitals, showed that none had defibrillators in their casualty departments. We must again reexamine how we ought to build a working health care system. Granted, some can afford to fly to Germany, and would careless about our hospitals, however, Minister Ocholi's wife death reminds us that in medicine, some things cannot wait. It needs urgent, emergent care. A 6 hour air ambulance flight to Germany cannot save at that point.

I wish the Ocholi family the fortitude to bear this irreplaceable loss, and I hope the Government of President Mohammadu Buhari will learn a thing or two from this traggic event.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

-CramJones

Hmm.. Insightful!!
May God help us..

abi o

With this accident one will think the government will take relevant measures to correct the health system but reverse will be the case.


I am not happy about the unfortunate and avoidable death of the minister and his family, but in a way I am happy, why being so is because those in power will be pushed to do the right thing since one of their own has gone because it could have been one of them in RIP world.

However if nothing happens to address the roads, first aid education,health and the emergency system of this country, then nothing good should be expected.

Excellent post. Obeying traffic rules is key to preventing road traffic accidents. I have come across many who see safe driving as an act for weaklings. Very shocking!!! And it appears that the number of dangerous drivers in our roads is on the increase. People hardly spend time to learn driving before deploying to the high way. We must fix our roads but same time commence a concerted campaign to flush out bad drivers from our roads. Bad driving is a menace contributing to the high rate of road fatalities.

Calabar / Itu / Uyo road is one of the most dangerous in Nigeria where countless number of trucks ferry stones from Calabar quarries or cement from UNICEM to other towns; very busy and dangerous road. Here truck drivers switch lanes as they desire; only indicating their intention to do so with a flash of the head lamp. The oncoming traffic has no choice but via off the high way to avoid a collision. Sometimes it is two fatal accident per week on this stretch of road. One I recall from 2015, a truck ran into traffic slowed down by pot holes pushing a number of vehicles into a shallow ravine. Not less than 12 were untimely dispatched to the beyond. Government must commit adequate resources because the present activities of federal road safety are grossly inadequate. The challenges are bigger than their capacity. I think the state governments should get involved too on a big scale.

U wan tell us say you get SUV OKwia?

May his soul rest in peace.

For the first time ever or should I say, since 19kpiridim, cramjones made sense.

This is the change folks!

Deaths by accidents per year

The FERMA responsible for fixing that road should be investigated, and somebody should be jailed for embezzling the funds. That's if funds were allocated.

Well articulated.
I was on that road myself few months ago and I didn't see the 'smoothness' every one was talking about. It was raining that day and puddles kept building up in different places implying poor drainage.
Also the speed of some drivers was ridiculous.

Spot on.RIP to the man, son and wife

I have a feeling this family aint corrupt...
The likes of ibb, david mark et al enjoy long life. Hmm.. Only God can save sha; maybe he's cool with leaving us with bad and rotten eggs.

Jesus have mercy

Nigeria's religious system says God dictates everything including the day and way a man dies. The government is following that belief religiously so it's useless to fix the roads since God will still kill when He wants.

That's the general idea among religious Africans all over the world. That's why we are at the dregs of development.

Hmmmm. Kogi

The write-up captures my thought.

Hmmmmm...may his soul rest in peace!
Government should just fix that road and other death trap called road across the country.... Okene road, lagos road, Iwaro-Oka road in ondo state and so many other roads are death trap and something should be done about them.

I remembered Chief Sunday Awoniyi, father of the formal deputy governor of Kogi state also lost his life in an accident on that same Abj-kaduna road some years back.

This is front page material..

Spot On! Everything about this country is messed up! That's how I watched my dad died at LASUTH 2yrs ago! You can't believe that as at 2014, the Emergency ward at Lasuth had just One Ambulance to evacuate patients outside the Hospital for surgeries and other emergency treatment. So for one to use the Ambulance, you must have booked down earlier like 3 or 4 days time! So pathetic. The Behind Hiace Ambulance you see on high way are only used for Road victims and not for patients at the Hospital ward. Right inside the emergency room the doctor attached to my Dad was busy eating Gala and coke! After few minutes, he pronounced my Dear Dad Dead!! I nearly strangled him to death if not for the timely intervention of his colleagues that came to his rescue! God help us!

For any good to take place sacrifice must be done.
With his death, I believe he has become or has being used as the sacrificial lamb to better the road conditions of the country.

This is also the first shot at the minister for transport.

We will mourn. We will write great articles like this one. Government officials will make promises.

But guys, watch...... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will be done to change things for the better.
NothIng, nothing, Nothing!!!

We will mourn. We will write great articles like this one. Government officials will make promises.

But guys, watch...... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will be done to change things for the better.
NothIng, nothing, Nothing!!!

Abeg,who can help me with Starcomms recharge card?

Hmm

cramjones:
It was with a heavy heart that I heard about the death of Minister Ocholi and family. It is indeed a tragic news to his immediate family, the Federal Executive Council, the APC-led government, and most especially, the people of Nigeria who lost a first class asset. He would surely be missed.

Beyond Minister Ocholi's death, what many Nigerians did not know was that on the same day more than 100 other people died as a result of car crashes in Nigeria. Using the World Health Organization's recent data, Nigeria has one of the worst road traffic safety record, ranking 149th out of 184 countries studied by the World Health Organization. Why is this so? And what can we do to reduce these fatalities? We can certainly do a lot more to improve safety on our roads. While acknowledging that we all need to play our parts by wearing seat belts, driving within speed limits, obeying traffic signs etc. I would want to point out the most expedient commonsense things the Nigerian government must do to keep all of us safe and reduce this abysmal record.

1. Simple - Fix the roads! It seems to me from the narration about James Ocholi's case, there was a tire burst which led the SUV to somersault. There are many "death traps" on our roads. We have been relegated to being called "expert drivers" only if we develop techniques to dodge pot holes at high speed! I drove from Jos to Abuja recently and saw a Vetra sedan car who had just passed our SUV slip into a pot hole swerved off the road and caught fire. All passengers in the car, numbering about four were tragically burnt to ashes. It was one of the most horrific sights I have seen. It is no fluke that countries in the Western Hemisphere averages 6 per 100,000 fatalities and we stand at about 618 per 100,000 fatalities attributable to road crashes. To digress a bit, maternal mortality in Nigeria is same number as road fatalities, that is about 600 deaths per 100,000 live births, however, that is story for another day. If our government constantly fail to fix our highways, expand them and enforce traffic rules on its usage, the numbers would only go up, as population increases.

2. Paramedics/Road side emergency response: An image that tells the whole story, was the horrific image of Minister Ocholi's body covered with leaves. Most times during accidents like this all you see is a crowd gathered, with their hands on their heads muttering things like "Jesus!" "Chineke!" "This life!", others get busy with fanning the victims of the accidents. Some even get themselves entangled with the accident victims getting stained with their blood and carrying them carelessly sometimes even inadvertently severing a fractured C4 or C5 spine and killing the victim. My point is, we don't even have a clue of what first aid it. One would have thought that with the Boko Haram insurgency, the government would have created a program to deal with bomb and road fatalities. None of that exists. There is just nothing. According to the American Society for Orthopedic and Trauma Surgeons, over 50% of road traffic accident victims can survive if they get medical attention between 7 - 10 minutes. Are FRCS trained in advanced trauma and life support? Do their vehicles have facilities for emergency transfusions, minor surgical procedures on sight etc? This must change. And if the Buhari government and the Minister of Health seeks to gain any mileage in the CHANGE agenda, Minister Ocholi's death should at least spur some form of political will to change the status quo.

3. Hospitals: It was said that the Minister's wife who was in critical condition, and was rushed to the near by hospital, called Doka Hospital. As someone described the hospital to me, "that hospital is a S***t hole, it is worse than a refuse bin". We are good in building new buildings, but bad with building systems. The state of our health care is so dysfunctional, that even if you go to a hospital the broken system either do not even have any capacity whatsoever to help, some who have very little capacity, drive their patients away in the name of referrals. A survey done just last year by USAID on 15 Nigerian teaching hospitals, showed that none had defibrillators in their casualty departments. We must again reexamine how we ought to build a working health care system. Granted, some can afford to fly to Germany, and would careless about our hospitals, however, Minister Ocholi's wife death reminds us that in medicine, some things cannot wait. It needs urgent, emergent care. A 6 hour air ambulance flight to Germany cannot save at that point.

I wish the Ocholi family the fortitude to bear this irreplaceable loss, and I hope the Government of President Mohammadu Buhari will learn a thing or two from this traggic event.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

-CramJones

[b]Negro puleeeze.

1. Burst tire happens even on smooth roads. As much as I agree that we need to fix our roads, we also need to look into the proliferation of made in China tyres and fake tyres as well. As I type, there are a lot of them in our market ever since the Federal government banned the importation of second hand tyres. These Tyres are called China tyres and even the sellers would tell you they are of a lesser quality to the other top brand tyres.

Also, our commuters need to also develop the habit of carrying out regular checks on their cars and tyres especially before a road trip.

Another thing is to control the speed being plyed on our highways. I remember an over loaded Honda CR-V (3 at the back, 2 in front plus driver) doing speeds in excess of 160 on the bad portion of the Lagos - Benin expressway. I kept wondering what would happen if they had a Tyre blow out..


2. This was an interstate highway not a city limit highway. Even in the U.S and other developed countries, Paramedics dont just sit on the interstate waiting.

The leaves were a stop gap measure pending the arrival of the Police and other emergency responders.

3. That hospital must have been a private (small practice) hospital not capable of handling such an emergency. That said, we still need to fix our general hospitals too.

Ambulances as well and Ambulance attendants abroad can carry out small surgeries inside the Ambulance even before you arrive the hospital, but in Nigeria, ambulances are just for transportation.

What I would add to your third paragraph would be Air Medevac. Infact, all our emergency responders (Police, Ambulance and maybe even the Fire Service) should have an active Air wing to carry out faster evacuations in emergency situations. Our General Hospitals should also be equipped with Helipads to accommodate these Helos as well.


Generally speaking, our Lacadesical approach in this country to everything has got to change. [/b]

HMMMMMMMM

cramjones:
It was with a heavy heart that I heard about the death of Minister Ocholi and family. It is indeed a tragic news to his immediate family, the Federal Executive Council, the APC-led government, and most especially, the people of Nigeria who lost a first class asset. He would surely be missed.

Beyond Minister Ocholi's death, what many Nigerians did not know was that on the same day more than 100 other people died as a result of car crashes in Nigeria. Using the World Health Organization's recent data, Nigeria has one of the worst road traffic safety record, ranking 149th out of 184 countries studied by the World Health Organization. Why is this so? And what can we do to reduce these fatalities? We can certainly do a lot more to improve safety on our roads. While acknowledging that we all need to play our parts by wearing seat belts, driving within speed limits, obeying traffic signs etc. I would want to point out the most expedient commonsense things the Nigerian government must do to keep all of us safe and reduce this abysmal record.

1. Simple - Fix the roads! It seems to me from the narration about James Ocholi's case, there was a tire burst which led the SUV to somersault. There are many "death traps" on our roads. We have been relegated to being called "expert drivers" only if we develop techniques to dodge pot holes at high speed! I drove from Jos to Abuja recently and saw a Vetra sedan car who had just passed our SUV slip into a pot hole swerved off the road and caught fire. All passengers in the car, numbering about four were tragically burnt to ashes. It was one of the most horrific sights I have seen. It is no fluke that countries in the Western Hemisphere averages 6 per 100,000 fatalities and we stand at about 618 per 100,000 fatalities attributable to road crashes. To digress a bit, maternal mortality in Nigeria is same number as road fatalities, that is about 600 deaths per 100,000 live births, however, that is story for another day. If our government constantly fail to fix our highways, expand them and enforce traffic rules on its usage, the numbers would only go up, as population increases.

2. Paramedics/Road side emergency response: An image that tells the whole story, was the horrific image of Minister Ocholi's body covered with leaves. Most times during accidents like this all you see is a crowd gathered, with their hands on their heads muttering things like "Jesus!" "Chineke!" "This life!", others get busy with fanning the victims of the accidents. Some even get themselves entangled with the accident victims getting stained with their blood and carrying them carelessly sometimes even inadvertently severing a fractured C4 or C5 spine and killing the victim. My point is, we don't even have a clue of what first aid it. One would have thought that with the Boko Haram insurgency, the government would have created a program to deal with bomb and road fatalities. None of that exists. There is just nothing. According to the American Society for Orthopedic and Trauma Surgeons, over 50% of road traffic accident victims can survive if they get medical attention between 7 - 10 minutes. Are FRCS trained in advanced trauma and life support? Do their vehicles have facilities for emergency transfusions, minor surgical procedures on sight etc? This must change. And if the Buhari government and the Minister of Health seeks to gain any mileage in the CHANGE agenda, Minister Ocholi's death should at least spur some form of political will to change the status quo.

3. Hospitals: It was said that the Minister's wife who was in critical condition, and was rushed to the near by hospital, called Doka Hospital. As someone described the hospital to me, "that hospital is a S***t hole, it is worse than a refuse bin". We are good in building new buildings, but bad with building systems. The state of our health care is so dysfunctional, that even if you go to a hospital the broken system either do not even have any capacity whatsoever to help, some who have very little capacity, drive their patients away in the name of referrals. A survey done just last year by USAID on 15 Nigerian teaching hospitals, showed that none had defibrillators in their casualty departments. We must again reexamine how we ought to build a working health care system. Granted, some can afford to fly to Germany, and would careless about our hospitals, however, Minister Ocholi's wife death reminds us that in medicine, some things cannot wait. It needs urgent, emergent care. A 6 hour air ambulance flight to Germany cannot save at that point.

I wish the Ocholi family the fortitude to bear this irreplaceable loss, and I hope the Government of President Mohammadu Buhari will learn a thing or two from this traggic event.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

-CramJones

May his soul rest in peace.

A lot of roads are bad, and accident happens, even if the roads are smooth,

*speed kills* even Paul walker will tell him that. If only the driver wasn't on high speed he could ve controlled the suv and it won't ve got to that extent, but God knows best

This is sad but truth must be told, if that general hospital the wife was taken to had been up to standard, she might have survived but knowing Nigerian hospitals, they will rather let the patient bleed out than attend to them because they do not have the facilities.

This should be a wake up call. All you politicians, Honourables, Senators, Ministers and presidents that keep going abroad for treatment, the day will come when you might not be able to reach the US, UK, Germany in time ooooo and you might find your last hope is a general hospital.

Restructure and equip our hospitals, it's for your own good, that of your children and the nation generally.

A word is enough for the .....

Get sense na!!!!

so he is really dead