COORDINATOR'S REMARKS

Present Co-ordinator's Remark Past Co-ordinator's Remark

Acceptance speech by Oba David co-ordinator . March 2005

I am honoured and pleased to accept my appointment, by the Board of the PATVORA Organisation as the Co-ordinator. Over the years, I have had nothing but admiration for the work that has been carried out by PATVORA’s dedicated staff and for PATVORA's efforts to raise awareness on various concerns on road safety in the developing world. Moreover, I could not have inherited an organisation on a more solid mission. The PATVORA Organisation is well staffed, viable and enjoys a sterling reputation among colleagues alike locally and internationally.

Much of PATVORA's success has been due to the vision and hard work of PATVORA’s founders, members and volunteers. I believe that it has been the past Co-Ordinator’s drive, hard work and enthusiasm that have steered our organisation to its current level of success. For that immense accomplishment, I will be eternally grateful to Chude Ojugbana.

Chude and the Board have charged me with carrying PATVORA to the next level, that is, increasing the size of the organisation and its programmes substantially. My own vision is to make the PATVORA Organisation a brand in its own right and the best and most respected road safety non-governmental organisation working in Nigeria. Currently, we are operating from one Secretariat in Delta State. I want to move slowly and deliberately, but I would like to move the Secretariat to Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria immediately and expand Operations within the next few months. In my tenure, I also would like to increase PATVORA's financial resources, so we can execute more of our strategies at the grassroots level in Nigeria.

In order to realise that vision, I will need your help. Among our priorities is to open our doors for partnerships with those that share our vision on road safety and expand our volunteer scheme which has been temporarily suspended due to the unexpected increase since the launch of our website. Although, the PATVORA Organisation has always desired to expand but we have been careful about asking for sponsors because we wanted to build the appropriate capacity for partnership. Now we have it. Also, so great are the programmes that we want to execute and the challenges are much, that we cannot go it alone. So we must secure support, from a broad range of sources: private individuals, membership groups, foundations, multinational corporations, international agencies and more. We will also need support from the religious community, communication companies and the media to get the right road safety messages across.

On the international scene, my focus will be to build on our existing relationships and make suggestions on ways to wage the war on road crashes. The nomination of six members of the PATVORA Organisation by the Scientific Committee of the 14^th International Conference on Safe Communities to present their abstracts on road safety in June 2005, at Bergen, Norway presents another opportunity for the PATVORA Organisation to further its international advocacy for road safety development in Nigeria. As the leader of the delegation, my wish is to continue the drive for international road safety development agencies and research institutions to show support for road safety growth in Nigeria. I hope to build on the accomplishments of the joint outing of PATVORA and the Officers of the Federal Road Safety Commission during the 7^th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in June 2004 in Vienna, Austria.

Furthermore, as friends of the Organising Committee of Safety 2006 in South Africa, I hope to develop measures that will enable the PATVORA Organisation encourage research on road safety and build momentum for the Conference within the West Africa sub region.

I regard the PATVORA community — staff members, donors and colleagues and beneficiaries — as a team and a family, bound by our common love for road safety development work. Thank you for all that you have already done to make PATVORA the successful organisation it is today. I believe firmly that if we continue to work together, we can reach our ambitious goals for the future of PATVORA and, most important, for the future of road users.

New Year remarks by the outgoing co-ordinator of PATVORA, CHUDE OJUGBANA to Members and Volunteers at Grand hotels, Asaba- 5th January 2005.

Dear Colleagues,

On this occasion, it is my pleasure to thank you for your efforts in the past year. 2004 was another remarkable year shaped by your generosity and passion to help others.

While the years 2002 and 2003 were spent in laying the foundation of PATVORA. Events during the past year have set before us the clearest vision on road safety. The past year has been a busy and productive one in the relationship between PATVORA, the international community, Federal Road Safety Commission of Nigeria and road users. We are as passionate today as ever trying to arouse the nation to safety, protection and accident prevention on our roads.

The year 2004 will be remembered as a time of significant changes and lessons that have shown how valuable working together is. PATVORA has shown proof of great maturity as the year 2004 was used to put in place far-reaching reforms that are beginning to redirect, reconstruct and reposition PATVORA for greatness.

In a very short space of time we have created some impact on road safety. Thanks for your devoted efforts, we were able to register record-breaking achievements in the areas of advocacy for road safety and first aid training for commercial drivers. Last year we sent out letters to major private sector participants, government parastatals, automotive manufacturers, state governors, the academic community and the media to look at road safety in a comprehensive way as a shared responsibility. I am certainly excited about the work we have done to facilitate this understanding of road safety collaboration because this nature of cooperation is essential to achieve safer roads and enhance the capacity of the National road safety agency of Nigeria (FRSC). Many commended our actions and PATVORA is grateful to each one. These commendations call us to great work.

The members of PATVORA through their various activities have also shown evidence of good will and good sense by sacrificing time and resources to contribute to road safety development. The attitude of hard work and perseverance adopted by our volunteers played a decisive role in our fight against global road crisis.

In the past year, PATVORA also spearheaded calls on the international community to support national road safety agencies and research activities in Africa . The response has been quite encouraging. However, greater reliance on public-private partnerships will be the way to go in building emergency centres, road safety academies, awareness creation programmes, research centres and co-funding the National road safety Agency (FRSC) to justify hope for a better future on the roads.

Also, in the past year, PATVORA has proved to be an efficient partner in the fight for safer roads. The fact that the WHO officially acknowledged PATVORA in its fight against global road crisis is a testament to the energy and dedication of the activities of PATVORA's members and volunteers.

As we look back at the past year with pride and acknowledge great achievements together, we cannot rest on those efforts of the days gone by. We must focus our attention on new horizons, new opportunities and new achievements to be accomplished. Road safety in Africa faces many challenges today and we in road safety development of today and the future must be the ones to develop and implement the solutions which serve our common interests.

In terms of the outlook for the year, due recognition has been given to the fact that we have a high unacceptable rate of casualty on the roads, thus, there's much work to be done on this highly preventable killer disease. The next steps for us would be to build special programmes and partnerships that will make contributions that can be most meaningful to road safety development. It is therefore necessary that we use the opportunities offered by our new website to build and consolidate strong relationships with international agencies concerned about the road safety crisis. On the local scene, we shall work on strategies that will make key players in the economy recognise the critical importance of tackling road safety.

The PATVORA organisation wants to work closely with as many people and organisations as possible that are willing to help to make our vision for safer roads a reality. Our website facilities are exciting. It is a highly visible resource centre. We want to provide information on road safety, encourage research and promote tri sector partnership models for road safety that will have very positive impact throughout the African region. Most importantly, our desire this year is to build upon existing volunteer scheme and partnerships making them stronger and creating new partnerships with PATVORA. The completion of these tasks will consolidate our efforts on road safety development.

Indeed, the current situation created by the World Health Organisation by its dedication of the year 2004 to road safety are new and stimulating prospects for promoting the desired cooperation at all levels between organisations, countries and experts on road safety and thereby strengthening existing bonds between us. I express my appreciation for the important contributions the international community has made on road safety in the past year and for the understanding it has shown to the difficulties of road safety development in the developing world. I hope that in this year that is now starting, we will be able to improve on institutional relations, so as to examine and discuss all these road safety issues in greater depth, in the highest interests of road users. Presently, PATVORA has acted in line with the WHO recommendation by securing an approval for a road safety postal stamp from the Nigerian postal Agency (NIPOST). In collaboration with the FRSC, we hope to expedite action for the issuance of the stamp.

Also, in this year we intend to renew our appeal to the international community to improve the humanitarian agenda and all the assistance it has promised to the needy population in Africa on road safety. At PATVORA we have created conditions to make the work easier through our website and our experience is at the disposal of all those wishing to improve road safety in the African region.

While applauding the activities of the GRSP, FIA Foundation, World Bank, AfDB, Sida, DFID, ASIRT, NHTSA, TRL UK, USAID, CIDA, UN agencies, CDC and other international development agencies involved in road safety development, the great challenge before us is to work assiduously in ensuring that such global developmental agenda is extended to this part of the world. PATVORA hopes to count on its existing cordial relationship with some of these international agencies for greater cooperation on road safety issues in this year.

Another area of focus for this year will be to encourage the major participants in the energy sector, alcohol manufacturers, car component dealers and major players in other killer diseases to pick interest in road safety activities in Africa . On this, we have already commenced sensitisation and hope to offer constructive strategies for those willing to participate in PATVORA programmes or directly in other road safety initiatives.

It has been a privilege to work as the co-ordinator of PATVORA in the past two years. Specifically, in the past twelve months I have spent so much of it travelling around different parts of the country and the region. I have seen at first hand the sheer enormity of the problems faced by road users and the handicap of road safety agencies and I have been struck by the profound challenges, which the road safety agencies face in making progress in road safety.

In Nigeria, it is fair to recognise that the FRSC has had the merit of stabilising the rate of accidents in spite of the considerable increase in the volume of road traffic during these last years, but this stabilisation is not sufficient and requires a progressive and constant decrease of accident rate and most importantly, care for Accident victims as done in developed economies. However, for strategic and economical reasons, it is obviously not possible for the FRSC to implement efficiently all these measures and this is where collaboration becomes necessary.

PATVORA is currently discussing with the FRSC on some major partnership initiatives. The schemes are part of the larger vision of the FRSC's Chief Executive and Corp Marshal of taking road safety to the community level and properly integrating the FRSC in the global fight against road safety crisis for the benefit of millions of Nigerian road users.

I believe that with the new focus by the FRSC there is now a real opportunity to move forward and I believe that the time is now right for NGOs like PATVORA to play a much larger role in road safety and shift the focus of their activities to supporting the National road safety agency. This is exactly what the PATVORA organisation intends to do in this year. Consequently, we will now be significantly increasing our support for the FRSC. PATVORA intends to use its voice and reach in advocating for increased funding of the FRSC and enhanced road safety measures through some legislative proposals that are on the website.

As you can see from our website, we have set out the steps that we believe are necessary to get into a process that will lead to the success of the partnership with individuals and organisations. And I think those steps are very clear. They are, first of all, making sure that we set out a clear vision. The second thing is, we need to build on our existing relationships. Thirdly, however, if we want a viable road safety in Nigeria, we need to make sure that the resources of the FRSC are enhanced through alternative sources. And I think there is every possibility that we can do this, with the energy and will we intend to invest in advocacy.

In this year all hands must be on deck to ensure that we improve our capability to seek sponsors to enable us finance more of our programmes. Specifically, with enhanced resources, we intend to concretise talks on a partnership programme with the Nigeria University Commission on the introduction of road safety in general studies of the university curriculum. Also, we hope to further our discussion with the new Director General of the National Youths Service Commission on advancing the interest of corps members in first aid training, road safety research and exposing them to grant opportunities in postgraduate studies.

In our efforts to provide prompt assistance to victims of road accidents which remains our primary goal, we hope to enhance our relationship with major communication networks to provide toll free lines for accident victims and in partnership with willing corporate citizens, PATVORA will operate a highly functional help line centre for road accident victims. In addition to reducing fatalities on the roads, we have initiated a Black Spot Programme on our website, this is intended to be a major source of information for road maintenance and safety agencies of the government.

Once again, on the international level, as friends of Safety 2006 conference, the organisers of the 8th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion coming up in February 2006, South Africa , PATVORA's focus will be to create awareness and build momentum within the sub region for the Conference. As a first step, our goal will be to encourage past and present First Ladies in West Africa to incorporate child safety in their pet programmes. The success of this endeavour and the presence of these Excellencies at the World Conference in South Africa will to a large extent reposition the region as a key player in the fight against global road safety crisis.

In closing, let me use this opportunity to acknowledge the Almighty God for His wonderful deeds on PATVORA. To all members and volunteers of PATVORA, I am highly indebted to you all for the magnificent support extended to me in my two-year tenure as Co-ordinator, which coincidentally will expire next month. Although, I have the option for a second term, but I think it is fair to recognise that we have enough people with brilliant ideas within the PATVORA system that can steer the affairs of the organisation successfully with fresh initiatives and I believe that the work done so far, gives sufficient grounds to look with confidence and optimism to our common future.

May I use this opportunity to extend my appreciation to Road Traffic Injury Research Network (RTIRN) for their sponsorship during my abstract presentation at the 7th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in Vienna , Austria , June 2004.

To all those who directly or indirectly encouraged the PATVORA team when it appeared we where climbing a grease pole, I cannot thank them enough for their confidence and constancy in us. Specific mention must be made of Ike Okonta of ULCA and Ukolor Nwaogalanya from the United States .

To my good friend, Frank Odiachi, I say big thank you for the initial efforts in getting PATVORA off the ground and to Chief Sunny Iwedike Odogwu, Ide Ahaba, PATVORA will remain grateful for the encouragement and support of our research activities. Also, may I recognise the candid support of my late father as the first Patron of PATVORA and the sincere encouragement and support of my wife all through my absence from home. To Prof. P.A.C. Okwuobi, Nneka Ajufo, Maxim Uzoatu, Jide Egbeyemi, Hilary Okorie, Joe Esiso, Agu, Ossai and Officers of the FRSC, I remain very grateful. To our professional colleagues and road safety activists in Nigeria, including the members of SAVAN, First Call Medical Resources and the Red Cross Societies, I am thankful for their good efforts on road safety. To all those who commended and encouraged our efforts in the past years including; The Director General, National Emergency Management Agency of Nigeria - Dr. Markafi, Secretary of State U.K - Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn, David Sleet of CDC-USA, the Secretary General EU Road Federation - Jose Papi, Mariam Labinjo of Johns Hopkins University, Hon. Bosin Ebikeme, Red Cross EU, Harvard African Students Alumni Network (HASAN) and all those too numerous to mention, I say thank you. Your enthusiasm has given us hope to dream.

Thank you and happy New Year to you and all those you love.