Kano – Baffa Babba Danagundi, the Managing Director, Kano Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) has announced that the rate of accidents within Kano metropolis has dropped by over 70 per cent over the past two months.
The KAROTA boss said the feat was achieved through sustained, and intense advocacy on how to avoid minor traffic offences that usually cause gridlock and accidents, which in most cases lead to loss of human lives.
Danagundi who spoke with selected Reporters in Kano said the “facts are there in our hospitals, and when they confirmed to me I was elated because this feat is due to the re-orientation of our staff who are now fully motivated to work for the interest of the people and our dear Kano state.”
Danagundi who was the immediate past Majority Leader in the Kano state House of Assembly “ road users are now conscious of the traffic laws, by June this year for instance, we were getting about N5.5 million as fines from traffic offenders, but in July, we were able to receive only N2 million as fine from traffic offenders—this is to tell you that the road users are now abiding by the traffic laws, rules and regulations.”
The former local MP revealed that the Agency
the Agency was also pushing for the amendment of its laws so as to pave the way for adopting Community Services as an alternative for the punishment of traffic offenders in the state.
“You know, one of the challenges we face is that when you arrest some of these traffic offenders, they will tell you that they don’t have money. KAROTA is not a revenue generation agency per se, what we are really after is for road users to maintain traffic laws.
“So, we want to introduce this community services as a way of punishment so that when you say you don’t have money to pay your fine, you will be assigned to do a community service labour commiserate with the gravity of traffic offence you committed.”
He further disclosed that no fewer than 5, 000 traffic offenders were arrested and convicted by the Kano Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) Mobile Court within the space of one month.
Babba Danagundi added that their offences ranges from wrong packing, reckless driving, receiving/making calls while driving, over speeding, among other related traffic offences.
The tough talking former legislature said that KAROTA currently has a staff strength of 2, 400, “what I observed when I came in was that most of the staff don’t come to work. So, what I did is to set up an intelligence committee that will be monitoring our staff.
“In most cases, I go out myself to monitor their attendance and punctuality. This measure really improved our productivity because everybody is now on his duty post.
