Borno, Zamfara have highest casualties
Violent activities in Nigeria have resulted in the death of 7,253 Nigerians between June 2018 and May 2019.
These figures, released by Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa program, consist of those killed by insurgent groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State in the northern part of the country, herdsmen and extra-judicial activities by the military.
During the period under review, Borno and Zamfara recorded the highest number of killings contributing to 49 per cent of the total deaths within the last one year. Borno recorded 2,384 killings while 1,157 people were killed by different violent activities in Zamfara.
Other states that made up the top 10 states of death from violent activities are Kaduna, 540; Benue, 330; Adamawa, 303; Yobe, 264; Taraba, 176; Plateau, 166; Rivers, 160 and Katsina with 127 deaths.
The least affected states are Kebbi, 3; Kwara and Jigawa, 4; Osun, 8; Kano and Bauchi, 10; Gombe, Oyo and Enugu, 11 and Abia, 12;
The data also showed that extrajudicial activities by state actors led to the most killings in the country with 1,545 deaths, while 1,042 Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram sects.
Also, communal crisis and clash between herdsmen and farmers resulted in killings of 1,178 Nigerians while 1,230 deaths resulted from other factors.
The Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) said it tracks violence that is both causal and symptomatic of Nigeria’s political instability and citizen alienation.
“Relying on press reports of violence presents methodological limitations. There is a dearth of accurate reporting across certain regions, death tolls are imprecise, and accounts of incidents vary. There is the potential for political manipulation of media. Given these limitations, the NST makes every effort to collect information from multiple sources,” the NST noted.
…as 1,618 dies from road accidents in 3 months
The Federal Road Safety Corps has said no fewer than 1,618 people have lost their lives as a result of road accidents between December 2018 and February 2019.
The information was contained in the Report of Road Traffic Crash for December, 2018, January and December, 2019, released by the FRSC.
According to the report, over 21,577 people were involved in road crashes involving cars, minibuses, motorcycles, trucks, tankers and trailers.
Further analysis shows that the top five causes of road accidents were speed violation, wrongful overtaking, dangerous driving, tyre burst and brake failure.
The FRSC report identified Kaduna-Abuja road as the most prevalent route in cases of accident fatality within the period under review.
Similarly, the Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Lokoja and Kaduna-Zaria were also identified as routes with high record of road crashes.
The report called for the intensification of patrol and rescue operations along routes with high crash records to further reduce casualties.
“There is need to conduct workshop on vehicles safety education as well as safe usage due to high involvement of cars, minibuses and motorcycles in crashes.
“As a matter of fact, the Corps needs to step up enforcement on over speeding or initiate a high powered technology to detect and stem the tide of over speeding as part of operational activities,” the report added.
