Richard Ginika Izuora
The Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi has charged operatives of the Corps to eschew any form of compromise and carryout with all sense of responsibility and vigour the Presidential directives on partial easing of lockdown effective from Monday, May 4, 2020.
According to Bisi Kazeem the Corps Public Education Officer, the Corps Marshal gave the charge to the operatives in order to keep them on high alert regarding the imperatives of implementing to satisfaction the Presidential directives with particular emphasis on the restriction on interstate travels, physical distancing amongst vehicle occupants , compulsory use of protective face masks and provision of temperature check devices , sanitizers and hand washing points in motor parks and terminals
Oyeyemi ordered Commanding Officers to ensure that only vehicles conveying goods such as agro and petroleum products, medical supplies, relief and construction materials as well as essential services as directed by Mr President are allowed to travel across states.
He warned that on no account should taxis conveying more than 3 passengers (driver and 2 persons) be allowed passage on any route.
In the same vein, Buses must comply with the directives of conveying passengers without exceeding 50% of mandatory capacity (maximum of only 2 passengers on a row), while tricycles should carry only two passengers at a time, in line with the recommendations of Presidential Task Force on physical distancing amongst commuters.
This is as transport owners have been adequately communicated on maintaining environmental hygiene and provide temperature checks and hand watching/sanitising points at the parks/terminal. As such, Commanding Officers should, with immediate effect engage the Transport Unions on the need to adhere to the prescribed number of passengers they are to carry.
The Corps Marshal also ordered the personnel to ensure that defaulters are brought to book through the instrumentalities of already existing mobile court operations constituted for the lockdown enforcement.
While speaking on the alarming rise of the pandemic in Nigeria, he called on the entire populace to intensify efforts on personal hygiene and desist from violating the social distancing order, as the partial ease of the lockdown does not in anyway suggest that the scourge is over.
According to him, the partial lockdown period basically calls for more vigilance and stringent compliance even more than ever before, so as to avoid making mockery of the progress already recorded so far by the PTF in the fight against the global health challenge.