Why FRSC places emphasis on personnel training – Oyeyemi

• Explains marshals’ role in curbing COVID-19, kidnapping

The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says it is regularly organizing training for its personnel and sending some on courses that will make them perform better on their job for the benefit of the society.

Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, stated this in Lagos on Saturday, just as he stressed the corps would deepen its enlightenment of travellers and motorists on the need to observe the guidelines on social distancing and other protocols against COVID-19, kidnapping and other dangers they could be exposed on the highways.

He spoke at a capacity building workshop in Lagos on Saturday organized by the Nigeria Auto Journalists Association.

Oyeyemi, in a keynote address delivered at the event through the Corps Public Enlightenment Officer at the FRSC, ACM Bisi Kazeem, said the workshop aligned “fully with our own vision of developing the competencies of our personnel for improved service delivery.

“That’s why training and retraining of our personnel for positive impact on the motoring public has been part of our development agenda in the past six years of my management.

“Moreover, we are conscious of the fact that whatever training that our personnel receive will remain incomplete, if a strategic stakeholders like the Nigeria Auto Journalists Association who report on the world of motor vehicles are not given similar exposure in the field to complement the efforts.”

The FRSC boss said his personnel would deepen campaigns on social distancing by travellers and motorists and other guidelines to curb the spread of COVID-19, bandit attacks and abductions.

He said, “Recently, the nation was thrown into series of security challenges characterised by kidnapping of travellers, banditry and armed robbery all of which are automobile transportation-based.

“In addition, the nation was faced with COVID-19 pandemic which requires adherence to social distancing protocols by passengers at the parks and inside the vehicles.

“The responsibility of explaining these Federal Government’s directives and ensuring compliance by all fell on the shoulders of the FRSC which is the lead agency in matters of traffic management and safety administration in the country.”

He was optimistic the workshop would lead to the attainment of the goals of well trained auto journalists capable of delivering on the professional competence of reporting the dynamics of modern automobile industry.

“This is more so that the sophistication in auto engineering, reportage as well as the growing reliance on automobile as a veritable means of transportation for private and commercial purposes has made expert knowledge of the industry inevitable.

“People require assurances of the type of choice they could make in their means of transportation and the type of vehicles that could satisfy their safety and adventure needs.

“This, therefore, makes it imperative that there must be journalists with sufficient technical knowledge on the make, mechanics and technology that determine the type of choices that people could make in their automobiles.

“This workshop, therefore, provides opportunity for such knowledge, and it’s my hope that it would lead to the desired outcomes for the participants.”

Earlier, the Chairman of NAJA, Mr Mike Ochonma, stated that the workshop, an annual event by the association, was meant to train and re-train its members in the print, electronic and online media.

A senior lecturer at the Covenant University, Dr Oscar Odiboh, and a certified online expert, Mr Yusuf Aweda, were facilitators at the training programme.