•Initiative aims to reach 11,300 people through awareness campaigns
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
The Chevening Alumni Association of Nigeria (CAAN) has launched a road safety initiative to train 250 community members and transport workers to provide emergency assistance to road crash victims before professional responders arrive.
The programme, the organisation said, is designed to strengthen first-response capacity along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, one of Nigeria’s busiest highways, where delays in accessing emergency medical care can worsen injuries and cost lives.
The initiative, which runs until February 2027, is supported by the Chevening Alumni Programme Fund (CAPF) 2026-27, funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office through the British High Commission.
According to CAAN, in a statement signed by its President, Mr Kester Osahenye, the project will train participants to secure crash scenes, control bleeding, recognise life-threatening injuries, provide basic assistance and alert emergency services, with the aim of improving victims’ chances of survival during the critical first hour after a crash.
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) recorded 10,446 road crashes nationwide in 2025, resulting in 5,289 deaths and 33,400 injuries. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that Nigeria recorded 36,722 road traffic fatalities in 2021.
CAAN said the heavy traffic of commuters, commercial vehicles and freight trucks along the Lagos-Ibadan corridor could delay the arrival of ambulances and other emergency responders, making the actions of people already at crash scenes particularly important.
The project seeks to address the gap between the occurrence of crashes and the arrival of professional medical assistance by equipping residents and transport workers with practical skills to provide safe, immediate support.
It will complement the work of the FRSC and the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System by strengthening the initial response to crashes while ensuring that victims are referred to appropriate emergency and health services.
According to the statement, the programme will begin with a train-the-trainer exercise in October to prepare 30 peer trainers, followed by five community training workshops between October and December. Refresher training is scheduled for January, while a dissemination forum and webinar will take place in February.
Participants will receive training at no cost in scene safety, basic bleeding control, airway awareness, identifying and supporting crash victims, emergency communication and safe referral procedures.
The initiative also plans to produce six short learning resources in English, Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin to extend its reach beyond direct participants. Through subsequent training and public awareness campaigns, it expects to reach more than 11,300 people.
Dr Kiitan Bolajoko, a trustee of the Sanitas Health and Development Foundation (SANHDEF) and a 2020-21 Chevening alumna, said the initiative was motivated by the recurring sight of people gathering around crash victims without the knowledge required to provide safe assistance.
“As Chevening alumni, we chose this problem because we have all seen it: a crash on the expressway, a crowd of people wanting to help, and no one sure what to do while the minutes that matter slip away. The truth is that survival on our roads too often depends on strangers who were never shown how to act safely,” she said.
Bolajoko said the project would empower people already at crash scenes to become the first link in the chain of emergency care, stressing that the intervention was intended to complement, rather than replace, professional emergency services.
“By training and trusting the people already at the scene, we are not replacing the emergency services; we are making sure that when they arrive, the victim has already been kept alive and stable by someone who knew what to do,” she added.
The Health Emergency Initiative (HEI), which specialises in emergency medical response and community-based first aid training, will provide technical support for the programme.
Its responsibilities include competency-based training, practical simulations, refresher sessions, emergency referral guidance and quality assurance.
The Executive Director of HEI, Mr Paschal Achunine, said delays and uncertainty during the first hour after a crash could contribute significantly to fatalities, adding that communities could be equipped with basic skills to improve outcomes.
“We have spent years at the point where road crashes become tragedies, and the pattern is always the same: it is not only the injury that costs lives, but also the delay and the uncertainty in the first hour,” Achunine said.
He added that the skills needed to provide initial assistance were teachable and did not require participants to have medical backgrounds.
“Equipping communities along the Lagos-Ibadan corridor to respond with confidence and safety is exactly the kind of practical, locally owned approach that saves lives, and that lasts,” he said.