Dr. Confidence Eke, the chairperson of Driving Schools and Safety Alliance Africa (DSSAA) and former comptroller general of the Rivers State Road Traffic Management Authority, in this interview with OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, shares that DSSAA was created to deal with the high rate of road disasters in Africa, stressing it is even more worrisome that since 2010 crash fatalities in other continents have been reducing while those in Africa have been on a steady increase. Excerpts:
Kindly introduce yourself and your relationship with Driving Schools and Safety Alliance Africa (DSSSA).
My name is Dr. Confidence Eke. I’m the chairperson of Driving Schools and Safety Alliance Africa (DSSAA).
Before now, I served with the Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigeria’s lead agency in road safety policing, as the sector head of training in the Rivers State Sector Command until I was appointed as the comptroller general of the Rivers State Road Traffic Management Authority, a regional road safety policing agency. I’m also the chairman of the board of trustees of the Driving School Association of Nigeria (DSAN) and the Rivers State Vice Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIoTA).
What’s DSSAA all about?
DSSAA is a professional association of driving school owners, driving instructors, road safety advocacy activists in Africa, and Researchers from around the world with a keen interest in road safety in Africa.
When was DSSAA established, and don’t you think its creation duplicates what other driving school associations are already doing? What is unique about DSSAA?
Driving Schools and Safety Alliance Africa (DSSAA) is registered in The Gambia with an overseas office in the UK. At the moment, we are setting up offices in the national capital of all African countries. It was established in January 2025.
DSSAA is not a duplication of the programs of other national driving school associations because it is the first coalition of driving school owners, driving instructors, researchers, and road safety advocacy activists in Africa. All the National Driving School Associations in Africa, including the Driving School Association of Nigeria, of which I’m the Board Chairman were all set up for owners of Driving Schools and their roles revolve around catering to the interests of their members.
In the case of DSSAA, it is not only a larger coalition involving other professionals outside the Driving School Industry; it is the first of its kind in Africa as our membership is globally spread. The uniqueness of DSSAA is bringing together a wide spectrum of Leaders in different Countries working with Researchers and Activists beyond Africa
What are the reasons for the establishment of DSSAA?
Driving Schools and Safety Alliance Africa (DSSAA) was created to deal with a disaster situation in Africa. If you look at the 2023 WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety, deaths on the roads in Africa are 19.5 per 100 persons. It is even more worrisome that since 2010, crash fatalities in other continents have been reducing while that of Africa has been on a steady increase.
What are the causes of the increase in the death of our people?
We have substandard road infrastructure, mechanically deficient vehicles, poorly trained drivers, and a deficient driver certification system.
Considering these factors, the most exigent issue to fix is poor Driving School training which is the foundation of Road Safety that most governments and voluntary organisations are yet to recognise.
So in the quest to create a veritable platform that will build the capacity of Driving Schools, establish a peer review mechanism, lobby national governments and voluntary organizations in revisiting driving schools as a critical structure in the fight against road traffic injuries and fatalities, I and other leaders of driving school associations in different African countries came together to form DSSAA.
Our mission, therefore, is to mobilize all the critical stakeholders to rethink Road Safety.
What do you mean by rethinking Road Safety? How do you begin to change the Driving orientation of someone who left the Driving School 5 or 10 years ago without undergoing the requisite drills?
What Programmes have you mapped out to achieve this?
Our major project is the establishment of an online learning school called ADPRIP (African Institute for Driving Instructors and Road Safety Professionals). Through ADPRIP, we plan to collaborate with regulatory authorities in different African countries and well-established driving schools to retrain and certify driving school instructors in Africa as well as train driving school owners on best practices.
Our flagship CSR project is the ASSVP (Africa Safe School Volunteer Project), through which we want to offer free road safety training in schools, sponsor installation of motorists’ warning signage and markings, and provide volunteers to serve as wardens at school intersections.
So many other programmes are planned which can be previewed on our website, dssaaafrica.com
We are planning the first joint Summit for Driving School Owners, Driving Instructors, Researchers, and Road Safety Advocacy Groups in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the 24th and 25th of September this year.
What is your message to stakeholders?
I call on stakeholders to realize that the key to reversing the ugly trend of fatalities is to build the capacity of driving schools. There are so many components of Learner Driver’s training infrastructure that driving school operators in Africa cannot acquire on their own without support.
Take a driving range, for instance that requires hectares of constructed Roadway; the same applies to simulators that can manage different Road scenario drills.
We will be reaching out to national governments and voluntary organizations for collaboration, which will yield positive dividends of reversing the trend of carnages on our Roads.
What’s the perception of Driving School operators towards the association?
The perception of driving school operators towards DSSAA can best be described as momentous in view of the fact that the enlightened ones are excited at the capacity development potential of the Association.
I must reemphasize that DSSAA is not only for driving schools. Road safety nonprofit organizations will also be reinforced through capacity building and grants. Smart driving school operators will leverage this synergy with road safety nonprofits and researchers.
Who qualifies to be a member of the association and what benefits do they stand to gain from belonging to it?
To qualify, you must be actively involved in road safety activities either in the public or private sector anywhere in the world.
How do you recruit members?
Forty percent (40%) of our recruitment presently is through our website and social media handles while the other 60% is directly done by our affiliates and continental leadership.
What’s the administrative structure of the association, both locally and internationally, how do you select the leaders and what qualifies you for executive positioning?
We have the chairperson, board secretary, and coordinator of our overseas office in the UK at the apex. The activities at the global level are coordinated by an array of volunteers and affiliates. At the national and subnational levels, country directors and state managers are working on the implementation of our programs.
The leaders are selected based on their track record in road safety advocacy profiles; they are men and women with excellent footprints in the road safety landscape. I will give you three examples: our country directors in Nigeria, Botswana, and Egypt.
In Nigeria, Jide Owatunmise our country director, has been in the forefront of driving school reforms and school children safety advocacy. Our Country Director in Botswana, Maatla Otsogile is the founder of the Society of Road Safety Ambassadors (SORSA), which plays a leading advocacy role in that region of Africa. The Egypt Country Director, Mohammed AboAlmaaty, is the founder of Talons Academy, the biggest Motorsports and racing training school in Africa that attracts trainees from different parts of the world.
How do you fund or intend to fund the association?
Our funding is done by our Global Affiliates. They are listed on our website. We are open to more funding support from responsible Citizens across the globe.
Do you have challenges so far? Do you envision any futuristically, and how do you intend to tackle them?
The greatest challenge we have is from ignorance of our mission, and we are working together to surmount that.
What advice would you give driving school operators in the country?
My advice to driving school operators is to embrace change because nobody can stop change. We are living in a world of limitless possibilities with new technologies for training, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Vehicle designs and operating systems are becoming more automated. You either upgrade your knowledge or you get yourself out of business.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT
