flamingREED:


God has said:
1. What a man sows shall he reap - Gal. 6:7

If we do not fix the roads, we will reap the myriad injuries that shall accrue from such neglect.
He has ordered us to subdue the earth, if we fail to, the earth will subdue us.

2. God has said 'he that rules over men must be just and rule in the fear of God'..-2 Sam. 23:3.

If this is obeyed, there will be no looting and diversion of funds for road construction into the bank of utopia.

Consequently, there will be no road accidents.

Even in your family, if you fail to provide for your wife and children, you're referred to as an infidel and have denied the faith no matter your Christian devotion cum profession- Paul.

My man, our God is too noble to be associated with such a vain and carefree assumption.

Your failure to know God is the reason for your calamities and woes rather...

Whoever follows God does good, lives good, is honest and is a blessing

MrAboki:



[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]

pee777:


Sorry, God is not a killer! It's the devil that kills through the wickedness of Men.

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

repogirl:

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 .....

benuejosh:
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.

LightofEarendil:
I think a good lesson to learn here is to pay attention to our cars, especially tires and to drive at a controlled speed. While we wait and push the government to fix the road and provide other services. There are things only we can do for ourselves.

There are already enough dangers on our road than for us to add more complication. Obeying simple car safety rules is also critical so that if an accident happens, we would have at least reduced the chance of death as much as we can.

I learn this from a Road Safety officer. The higher your speed, the higher the chance of death. 110km/h is the most reasonable to maintain. When travelling I always maintain a 110km/h speed no matter how smooth and clear the road is. I leave nothing to chance.

Also, using a belt is a must! As much as possible, avoid situations where you or anyone have to not use the seat belt.

Lastly, patience and self-restrain is key.

jpphilips:

@CramJones, FRSC does not have an accident Investigation Bureau, if they did, the best in the world will not come up with the tire claptrap in less than 24hrs.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to reproduce an accident scene? yet you bought the nonsense spewed by FRSC who perhaps drew the conclusion based on a burst tire on site. A roll over vehicle is exposed to sharp debris that can puncture the tire, it doesn't mean that a burst tire caused the accident.
Mere looking at the pictures, the curtain side airbag deployed from the secondary node which is a fail safe for SRS systems the only thing that would cause that is that some occupants were not wearing seat belts, Ocholi's lifeless body in the bush support that theory. Else he would be strapped to his seat inside with perhaps major neck injuries due to the roof cave in.
It is unclear what caused the accident should be the right narrative, the so called FRSC has neither the expertize nor resources to determine the cause of an accident in such short notice.
Speed should be the first culprit in this case.
People like you make the outside world think Nigerians are goats.

jpphilips:



@CramJones, FRSC does not have an accident Investigation Bureau, if they did, the best in the world will not come up with the tire claptrap in less than 24hrs.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to reproduce an accident scene? yet you bought the nonsense spewed by FRSC who perhaps drew the conclusion based on a burst tire on site. A roll over vehicle is exposed to sharp debris that can puncture the tire, it doesn't mean that a burst tire caused the accident.
Mere looking at the pictures, the curtain side airbag deployed from the secondary node which is a fail safe for SRS systems the only thing that would cause that is that some occupants were not wearing seat belts, Ocholi's lifeless body in the bush support that theory. Else he would be strapped to his seat inside with perhaps major neck injuries due to the roof cave in.
It is unclear what caused the accident should be the right narrative, the so called FRSC has neither the expertize nor resources to determine the cause of an accident in such short notice.

Speed should be the first culprit in this case.

People like you make the outside world think Nigerians are goats.