The Kano Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) said it has convicted a total of 5,000 traffic offenders within just one month through its mobile court.

Head of the traffic outfit, Baffa Babba Dan-Agundi, said this in his office on Wednesday while receiving members of the Kano state Correspondent Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).

Mr Dan Agundi also revealed plans by the agency to introduce community service for traffic offenders that cannot afford to pay its fines.

“You know, one of the challenges we face is that when you arrest some of these traffic offenders, they will tell you that they don’t have money. KAROTA is not a revenue generation agency although, what we are really after is for road users to maintain traffic laws.

“So, we want to introduce this community services as a way of punishment so that when you say you don’t have money to pay your fine, you will be assigned to do a community service commiserate with the gravity of traffic offence you committed,” he said as reported by Kano Focus.

He added that KAROTA is sensitizing members of the public on how to avoid traffic offenses, which he said often lead to unnecessary traffic hold-ups and accidents.

Mr Dan Agundi identified some of the offences including wrong parking, reckless driving, receiving or making calls while driving, speeding, among other related traffic offences.

“As a result of the measures we put in place since I came in as the managing director of KAROTA, the rate of accidents within Kano metropolis has dropped by over 70 per cent.

”This is not a fabricated data. The facts are there even in our hospitals. When I visited some of the hospitals within the state, they confirmed this to me.

”Because this feat is due to the re-orientation of our staff who are now fully motivated to work for the interest of the people and our dear Kano state,” he said.

He continued: “To tell you that even the road users are now conscious of the traffic laws. By June this year, for instance, we were getting about N5.5 million as fines from traffic offenders, but in July, we were able to receive only N2 million as fine from traffic offenders.”

Mr Dan Agundi appealed to road users to be conscious of traffic rules and obey them, saying it is all about the safety of human life.

”If all of us do what is right while on the road, KAROTA will have less work to do and society will be better for it,” he said.