LASTMA call-up centre to check officers’ misconduct, tackle emergencies — GM

The Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA) has indicated its intention to introduce a call up centre for road users to promptly report misbehaviour of its personnel or other incidents on Lagos roads.

The General Manager, Mr Olalekan Bakare-Oki, told our reporter in Lagos on Tuesday that the initiative was aimed at rebranding LASTMA’s image and rebuilding public confidence in the agency.

He said that the centre would be unveiled before the end of the month.

According to him, the centre will have more than 10 responders attending to those who will patronise it.

“We will push out a special line where people can call us and tell us whatever they are experiencing on the road.

“It is not limited to when our men are misbehaving; when they see emergencies, incidents, they can call our attention to it.

“We will accommodate pidgin and Yoruba, apart from our lingua franca, which is English,” he said.

The LASTMA boss said that the feedback mechanism would be prioritised, most especially when officers were falling out of line, doing what they were not expected to do on the road.

He urged people to call and give them feedback.

“It should also not be only when our men are doing negative things, when they are doing something good too, they should be encouraged; we should also be notified, this is important too.

“Apart from the feedback, we have equally engaged stakeholders too, we discussed with the Community Development Areas, stakeholders in transportation sector too, viz a viz, the union of the buses, Uber and others, so that we can have a common front.

“Our number one responsibility is for free flow of goods and services across all Lagos roads, to improve the travel time of the motoring public.

“For us to achieve this, we need to involve all stakeholders,” he said.

The LASTMA boss said that up to 300 cadets were recently pushed out to join other officials in ensuring free flow of traffic in the state.

“These officers are outstanding cadets that have been employed for almost two years now, 18 months plus. We did training for them and they were kitted to join other officers on the road.

“We are just being careful that officers pushed out to work on the road are well trained, given soft skills on how to manage the motoring public and engage people on the road,” he said.

Bakare-Oki advised the cadets to conduct themselves in a manner that was expected of the organisation.

He urged them to operate with empathy, sympathy and high sense of humility, and to understand that protection of the road users was paramount because they were the taxpayers.

“And to the motoring public, Lagos residents, LASTMA is part of them.

“We are working for them to make sure we improve their travel time and make roads free as regards safety and incident management,” he said.