Guardian

IN one year of taking a space on the airwave, Lagos Traffic Radio 96.1FM has made sense of the power of radio in management of vehicular traffic, specifically by exposing poor compliance and enforcement of basic rules.

The radio station also exposed inadequacy, or lack of a national policy on road transportation. In fact, for a greater part of the year, until recently, 96.1 FM appeared like a double edged-sword: as much as it provided guidance to motorists and made vehicular traffic management easier, it offered Lagosians opportunity to release their angst over inability of governments’ agencies - Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and Nigeria Police traffic officers - to enforce traffic laws.

With an estimated population of about 18 million people, Lagos, as the traffic radio shows, provides a template for a total overhauling of Nigeria’s road transportation system.

Quite interestingly, some ‘vocabularies’ have emerged in the lexicon of radio broadcast courtesy traffic control via the airwaves. Some of such word usage include ‘Yankee Bravo’, a name given to the mini commercial bus drivers, perhaps as a result of their lack of regard for other users of the road; ‘backlog’, remnant of static or slow moving traffic caused by an obstruction; ‘inward’ or ‘outward’, going or coming.

The birth of the radio station had double coincidence: it was launched on Democracy Day, May 29, 2012, perhaps as a dividend of democracy and also a timely event that rescued motorists from the increasing traffic gridlock during the repair of a section of Third Mainland Bridge.

When the governor of the state, Babatunde Raji Fashola unveiled 96.1 FM, he had stated that the radio station would help reduce travel time.

Lagos Traffic Radio started as a three-way phone-in communication between motorists, a radio presenter and traffic managers, LASTMA officials. While the station has continued to enjoy praises from members of the public, the airwave is rife with the usual blame games, especially by when motorists are stuck in avoidable traffic jam, mostly caused by excesses of mini yellow commercial bus drivers who picked and discharged passengers at unathorised spots.

Frustrated motorists who call the radio station always say that enforcement of traffic laws could not be achieved “because some of the buses are owned by some members of LASTMA and Nigeria Police” traffic officers.

Also the traffic officials have mostly been accused by callers on the radio station of extorting money from private motorists while commercial bus drivers ‘are untouchable’ even for bigger traffic offences. However, the power of radio in linking the people with governance is being played out by the station, as the Honourable Commissioner for Transportation, Kayode Opeifa often make input by calling on phone to drop his number and emails 0807 500 5411, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for complaints. The phone and email contacts of LASTMA are also made available. And quite commendably, those who used the contacts continue to express satisfaction.

However, proper and fair enforcement still remains issue. In the early months, up to late last year, the radio would be so bombarded that a presenter on duty would be caught in the crossfire between motorists and LASTMA. Aside presenters such as Tunmise Oladapo-Kuku, Femi Akaani, Victor Oteri, Adebowale Yusuf and the night shift lady, Oluwanisola Arashi, who try to manage people’s frustration and anger, a few other presenters are often dragged into hot debates over ‘lack of enforcement’ on commercial bus drivers.

Also, the hope that the enactment of the New Lagos Traffic Laws would bring succour appears to have been dashed because non-commercial motorists still complain bitterly about the recalcitrance of commercial bus drivers obstructing free flow of traffic on unauthorized, notorious bust stops such as Mile 12, Ketu, Iyana Ipaja, Moshalashi and Ikotun junction. And as the airwave thickens with debates, which often becloud the widely lauded advantage of the traffic radio, it is therefore not surprising when the three-way communication was modified, keeping most calls of motorists off the air during peak hours in the morning and ‘return journey’ in the evening.

Currently, there is a two-way-communication: between the presenter and LASTMA official or a new introduction, described as traffic report from the Control Room of the state’s traffic authority. Why exactly was the sudden change? The original concept of the traffic radio, a source from the Lagos State Ministry of Transportation, disclosed, was to allow the traffic officials on the road and the control room report traffic situations to the radio stations while motorists and other users of the road get the reports from the radio “without a phone-in”.

The change in format, which cleansed the airwave of people’s emotion, however, came a bit late as the enforcement of the traffic laws on okada riders generated unnecessarily heated debate that overshadowed the real purpose of traffic control.

About eight months into the enactment of the New Lagos Traffic Laws and one year of the Lagos Traffic Radio, inadequacy of a national policy on road transportation has been exposed as well.  For example, reports from LASTMA and motorists monitored via the traffic radio station showed that another common impediment to free flow of vehicular traffic on highways in Lagos, was constant breakdown of long articulated vehicles otherwise known as trailers. Through reports from traffic officials as well as motorists, an average of two to three trailers often break down on the major highways every an hour. Most affected are Ikorodu Road, Western Avenue and Apapa-Oshodi Expressway and the Wharf axis. Also, similar reports come on the radio airwave from Lagos-Ibadan Expressway – each time the Federal Road Safety Corps {FRSC} gives traffic reports on Lagos Traffic Radio. Most times, the reports come from the Southwest commander of FRSC, covering from Benin-Ore through Lagos-Ibadan and berthing on the Idi-Iroko and Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway as well as from the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps.

And that the Lagos State Government is currently unable to enforce a section of the new traffic laws that restricts trailers to the hours of between 9 pm and 6 p.m clearly exposed lack of a national policy on road transportation. On Lagos-Ibadan Expressway as well as inside Lagos, particularly inward Wharf, from Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, reports from Lagos Traffic Radio keeps showing that the trailers are ‘kings’ of the road. The ‘impediments’ they cause is also worsened by non-professional attitudes of the drivers and poor state of some roads. During one of the editions of a morning segment Your Side Mirror as well as other segments at different periods of the programmes monitored across the year, which focused professionalism in driving commercial bus and trailers, some of the callers traced lack of compliance in traffic laws to the seemingly open age for commercial transport drivers.

Most of the ‘stubborn drivers’, the callers noted, are in the teens to mid 20s age brackets. Inability of a national policy on road transportation, if there is any, to regulate age of commercial bus and long drivers was faulted.

Traffic radio broadcasts from 5 am to 12 midnight. Aside the uninterrupted reports of traffic across the state and parts of Ogun State during the early hours and evening, other sections of the progranning, which offered education on better usage of road include Your Side Mirror, anchored by Oteri and Automedics, by Kunle Shinaike.

In programming, one of the most popular is Nightwaves, a nerve relaxing moment between 9 to 12 midnight anchored by Oluwanisola Arashi.

One year on the airwave, has Lagos Traffic Radio achieved it goal? Hon Opeifa, few days ago placed the score card on the desk of the public. “That’s for the public to decide”, Opeifa said.

Indeed, the radio station, aside providing guidance for motorists on the state of vehicular traffic when required, it appeared to have provided a medium for what one of the presenters, Oladapo-Kuku always referred to the appeal of Fashola: “Let us invest in the industry of the mind”.

Lagos Traffic Radio, a source disclosed, is an initiative of LASTMA and was expected to be handled by the Ministry of Transportation, but “hijacked” by Radio Lagos Eko 89.7 FM unit of Lagos State Broadcasting Corporation. The commercialisation of the morning and evening sections of the Lagos Traffic Radio during the early months of its operation, which appeared to have reduced free flow of reports from LASTMA and motorists, the source said, angered the Ministry of Transportation. Indeed, the commercial sections which included ‘prize winning courtesy of a leading communication company was taking quite a lot of attention from the main business of reporting traffic situations during the peak hours.