Olaoke Olusayo Victoria: Don’t Look Down On Anybody
While you are on your bed fantasizing or catching a sweet sleep; being curdled or curdling someone, some TRACE officers are having a sleepless night to enforce the rules and signs of the roads to guarantee the safety of all road users including pedestrians.
Commander Olaoke Olusayo Victoria spends most of the time in a patrol car responding to calls or actively looking for traffic law violators.
These include stopping drivers who aren’t wearing seatbelts to pulling over drunk or insane drivers sometimes chasing after a vehicle at high-speed to ensure its safety and safety of commuters.
Commander Olaoke, a smart and intelligent Traffic Compliance and Enforcement (TRACE) officer who has contributed immensely to the maintenance of Traffic Laws in Ogun State with over 13 years expertice, is saddled with resolving road incidents; handling dangerous traffic law violators, task dispatching among subordinates and administrative works simultaneously.
Commander Olaoke, a graduate of Economic Education who celebrated her birthday recently is from Ake, Abeokuta South Local Government Area.
The passion with which she discharges her duties is excellent. The duo of CREEKVIBES and TRAVELLERS publishers interacted with her and discovered that the general public knowledge of the objectives of the TRACE is a far cry from what was handed down.
According to the good-looking TRACE commander, they are meant to be on the road for 24 hours; they must be on accident scenes to secure property and render help to accident victims, she has a routine check on men discharging their duties during night shift to ensure they are discharging their duties accordingly and also to know their well being.
She is more concerned about TRACE officers posted to Osi Ikola road who have trucks to contend with because that route is prohibited for truck drivers who normally violate the traffic rules at night.
Commander Olaoke must put together reports on the traffic situations at Osi Ikola road, Ojuore which is the heartbeat of Ota due to its high commercial activities and the influx of vehicles.
Joju Igbala axis down to Conoil is currently experiencing high influx of traffic probably because of a few bad portions of the road.
There is a counseling section where traffic violators are enlightened on the dos and don’ts of road usage.
The commander said, “It is not about the penalties available for road traffic offenders but the ability to correct them on an offence or subsequent offences that might make them face the wrath of the law. For instance, a motorcycle rider was caught without a crash helmet. We enumerate the importance of a crash helmet to him because some of them think it is only the commercial motorcycle riders popularly known as ‘Okada’ that are mandated to use a crash helmet, we ensure the tutorial sink in him that accident is unpredictable and the job of the crash helmet is to protect the skull every other part of the body can be attended to like stitches or amelioration of broken bones by orthopedic doctors.”
Also, the importance of a seat belt is not ruled out of their teaching scope, how it prevents head and chest injuries during an accident.
She emphasizes those drivers who drive against traffic, jeopardize the lives of other road users and some of them pretended that they don’t even know that it is an offence.
“Anybody driving against the traffic is either he or she is under the influence of Alcohol; mentally imbalanced or wants to kill intentionally, if caught he or she will be given a psychiatric form to go for a proper brain evaluation and their licenses can be withdrawn.
Often time, I refer to it as the highest offence in traffic management because it is attached to a mental status an offender can be prosecuted in court.
As a driver, you need to be attentive to strange sounds from your vehicle; some drivers don’t even maintain their vehicles.
For vehicles that obstruct traffic flow, it is our responsibility to toe it off because accidents are unpredictable.”
As an administrative officer, she has to ensure that those due for annual leave proceed according.
Excerpt;
Have you encountered life-threatening experiences in the course of discharging your duties?
Oh, many.
Like how many?:
I can’t count.
What are the challenges facing TRACE?
The indigene of Ota are always difficult to pacify many will come here and brag, I remembered someone saying, ‘Eyin TRACE ti amo igba ti e de,’ meaning he knows when we came.
Is daddy not complaining about your incessant passing of night in the office?
He knows the kind of job I do, so he has to bear with me, when I got this job initially I thought perhaps I could do it for a while and get another offer but along the line, my passion for the job grew but in a nutshell, my husband still discharges his duties to me and I thank God I’ve not disappointed him.
With duty exigencies do you still attend social events?
The nature of our job is 24 hours except that occasion is very important that’s when we need to access permission through the appropriate channel.
Have you lost men on this job?
Haaa, we have lost some men o, in the course of discharging their duties, Ejo, Ijoya and a couple of them, I can’t remember how many for now.
Any message for our reader?
It could be rough in the beginning but surely there will be light at the end of the dark tunnel, I had been written off by many, but to God be all the glory, my advice is don’t look down on anybody; don’t write off anybody.
What kind of music do you listen to when relaxing?
Yinka Alaseyori’s gospel songs are my favourite, and I also like Elijah Akintunde too.
