Abuja -The House of Representatives on Wednesday asked the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), to evacuate all abandoned vehicles from roads across the country within three months.
This followed a motion by Rep. Nicholas Ossai (Delta-PDP), which was unanimously adopted by the House.
The House also urged FRSC to move the abandoned vehicles to designated centres pending further actions.
Ossai noted with dismay the rising number of broken down vehicles and those involved in accidents.
The lawmaker said abandoned vehicles posed danger to no fewer than seven million vehicles that operate on Nigerian roads on daily basis.
“This is partly responsible for Nigeria having one of the highest casualty figures from road accidents in the world,’’ Ossai added.
He listed some of the notable roads with a large number of abandoned vehicles to include the Apapa-Oshodi and Lagos-Badagry expressways.
Others are Lagos-Ibadan-Ogbomosho-Ilorin-Jebba-Minna-Abiyo expressway and Abuja-lafia-Makurdi-Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway.
Ossai called for investigation into an agreement between the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment and its Japanees counterpart to set up a project to recycle abandoned vehicles.
“The initial phase of the project was aimed at recycling abandoned vehicles in Abuja into scrap metals in an eco-friendly manner that would clean up the environment, produce wealth and create about 3,000 jobs’’, he added.
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Ossai expressed concern that armed robbers and insurgents use the abandoned vehicle as tools to perpetrate their crimes on the highways.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, mandated the Committee on Commerce and Industry, when constituted, to investigate the recycling project. (NAN)