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Lagos targets early road safety education through schools

The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority says its School Traffic Safety Advocacy Programme aims to reform habits among young residents of Lagos.

• August 29, 2025
Schoolchildren crossing road
Schoolchildren crossing road [Credit; Star Rating For Schools]

The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority says its School Traffic Safety Advocacy Programme aims to reform habits among young residents of Lagos.

Taofiq Adebayo, spokesman for LASTMA, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday. He described the STS-AP as a flagship initiative designed to instill traffic discipline, civic responsibility, and life-preserving values in the city’s youngest generation.

Mr Adebayo explained that the programme had grown from a marginal sensitisation drive into a transformative educational campaign shaping future custodians of Lagos’ road safety culture.

According to him, the initiative is not merely a bureaucratic reform but a quiet revolution in behavioral change.

“It transforms classrooms into nurseries of civic virtue, children into apostles of discipline, and families into allies of enforcement. In a city where disorder often masquerades as destiny, shaping youthful consciousness towards road safety is both a governmental act and a moral covenant. The success of this programme reaffirms that road safety is not the burden of officers alone but a shared responsibility, nurtured from childhood,” he said.

Mr. Adebayo stressed that as Lagos aspires to global-city status, Olalekan Bakare-Oki’s legacy may be measured not only in eased traffic but also in saved lives. He said the programme would awaken future generations to the sanctity of order amidst motion.

He noted that through school engagements, workshops, dramatised role-plays, and road-safety simulations, children are introduced not just to traffic codes but to the inviolable value of human life.

“Pedestrian discipline, understanding signage, proper use of pedestrian bridges, seatbelt culture, and safe cycling are presented not as rules but as habits to embody.

“In schools across the metropolis, LASTMA officials appear not as stern enforcers but as empathetic tutors, turning road safety from punishment into pedagogy. The child who halts at a zebra crossing or insists on using a pedestrian bridge becomes a seed of generational transformation,” Mr Adebayo said.

He further said that under Mr Bakare-Oki, the programme had expanded into a partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Education.

“The initiative now includes visual technologies, animated safety clips, and gamified simulations to engage pupils. It has also improved LASTMA’s public image, showing officers as nurturers of safety, guardians of discipline, and stewards of innocence,” he added.

(NAN) 

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