The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says its recent partnership with the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT) will enhance driver training and help reduce truck crashes on Nigerian roads.

The corps public education officer (CPEO), Osondu Ohaeri, made this known in Abuja on Thursday.

The FRSC and NITT signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on June 30 to advance training, capacity development, research and innovation, while strengthening Nigeria’s transport sector.

Mr Ohaeri said NITT was responsible for capacity building in the transport and logistics sector, including training truck drivers operating across the country.

According to him, truck drivers are required to undergo training at NITT, and the partnership aims to improve training standards and align them with global best practices.

“So what we are doing now is to try to infuse our own expertise into what NITT has so that people can be better trained; it is a matter of trying to scale up the standard of our training programme,” he said.

He said the partnership became necessary because of the evolving dynamics of road transportation, particularly in intelligence gathering, service delivery and efforts to ensure safer roads for users.

According to him, FRSC, as the lead agency for road transport safety management and traffic administration, considers collaboration with NITT critical to achieving its mandate.

“The institute is a professional training and research intelligence centre for all modes of transportation in Nigeria, so when the two agencies come together, we see how we can advance training and capacity development.

“We will also improve research and innovation in line with global contemporary standards, seeing how road transport is being operated in other climes and how they go about the road markings and the road furniture,” he said.

Mr Ohaeri added that the collaboration would result in the development of additional training programmes jointly designed and implemented by FRSC and NITT.

“The MoU is bringing the expertise together so that we can get the best out of what we want to give those who are in the logistics and transport sectors, because the NITT manages those issues better.

“NITT is the institute that trains them, so if we want to get the best out of those who operate in that sector, we will need to upscale our capacity, the content and research we carry out before we do our services,” he said.

The FRSC spokesman assured Nigerians that the corps would continue to adopt innovative measures to create a safer motoring environment across the country.

Following the signing of the MoU, the corps marshal, Shehu Mohammed, and the director-general of NITT, Bayero Farah, travelled to Cairo, Egypt, to advance implementation of the smart national transport databank project.

The visit also featured the unveiling of proposed driver training and development centres by ARCORP, Egypt, in partnership with the FRSC and the NITT under a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement.

(NAN)