Expert demands central crash database to curb road accident crises
A call has been made for the establishment of a national crash database in Nigeria to address the country's alarming rate of road accidents.
Transportation researcher Mujeeb Abdulrazaq expressed concern that the disjointed crash data in Nigeria hampers efforts to improve road safety.
He indicated that effective policy-making is unattainable without more precise and coordinated data.
“To tackle this issue, there is an immediate need to create a cohesive national crash database that connects the FRSC, police, hospitals, mortuaries, and insurance companies.” He suggested implementing digital reporting, GPS-enabled crash documentation, and forging stronger collaborations with academic and research institutions.
“We need to strengthen the foundation,” he stated. “If we can account for every crash and every life lost, we can finally formulate policies that truly reflect the scale of the issue.”
As a specialist in advanced safety analytics, Abdulrazaq contrasted global best practices, which leverage data-driven strategies to minimize traffic fatalities, with the current situation in Nigeria.
He pointed out that Nigeria's crash statistics are far too fragmented and inconsistent to facilitate effective interventions, referencing FRSC data that indicates about 10,000 annual incidents resulting in 5,000 to 6,000 deaths.
He remarked that these official numbers are “statistically impossible” for a nation with over 230 million people, highlighting independent assessments from international health organizations suggesting a significantly higher annual death rate.
He mentioned, “Global models indicate Nigeria may be losing nearly 40,000 individuals each year to road traffic accidents. That reflects an eight- to ten-fold discrepancy. If our official statistics suggest Nigeria has one of the lowest fatality rates globally, yet global metrics tell a different story, the issue lies with the data infrastructure, not the interpretations.”
Abdulrazaq attributed these inconsistencies to inherent weaknesses in Nigeria’s reporting mechanisms.
He clarified that the FRSC, police, and hospitals each manage their own unaligned databases, resulting in considerable underreporting—particularly concerning accidents in rural areas or instances where victims succumb after reaching hospitals.
To emphasize the inadequacy of Nigeria’s data system, Abdulrazaq provided international comparisons. South Africa, with a population of 60 million, officially reports over 12,000 road fatalities annually, making Nigeria’s official statistics seem highly unlikely.
He further observed that the solution involves adopting practices from countries like Brazil and the UK, which have set up integrated databases that unify various sources such as police reports and hospital data.
“Such systems enable authorities to identify precisely where accidents occur, the causes behind them, and which interventions are effective,” he stated.
“That degree of awareness is what Nigeria desperately needs.”
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