• Court Suspends Enforcement Of Tinted Glass Permits
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the insistence of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) on issuing the Central Motor Information System (CMRIS) certificate to motorists as ridiculous.
This came as the Federal High Court sitting in Warri, Delta State, has ordered the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to suspend the enforcement of tinted glass permits for vehicle owners nationwide.
The interim ruling, delivered on Friday, came as the court began hearing Suit No. FHC/WR/CS/103/2025, filed by legal practitioner John Aikpokpo-Martins against the IGP and the NPF.
The presiding judge directed the police authorities to “maintain the status quo and respect judicial processes pending further proceedings in the matter.”
In a statement on Friday by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the rights group argued that it is unconstitutional and illegal for the hierarchy of the police to convert the policing institution into a revenue generation outfit.
“It is absolutely absurd that at the moment that the nation is weighed down by a multiplicity of law and order challenges such as heightened state of insecurity and violent crimes, which the NPF has failed to combat, the very security agency created as the first line of law enforcers, which is the NPF, has become ‘a tax collector’ and a revenue making agency. It is even unlawful going by the newly promulgated tax laws for the police to constitute themselves into a revenue collection agency when the law does not recognise the police as such,” HURIWA argued.
The group criticised the police for abandoning its constitutional primary duty of prevention and combating of crimes and criminality in Nigeria and deviating to the strange arena of revenue mobilisation and generation in clear breach of Nigeria’s 2025 tax reform Acts, which established the Nigeria Revenue Service(NRS) as the central tax authority now responsible for collecting all federal tax and non-tax revenues.
It further argued that the police under the current hierarchy are attempting to overstep their bounds and become a revenue-generating agency, which is not within their legal purview.
“We hereby restate our earlier position that any such certificate being issued by the NPF without legal backing is absolutely illegal, null, and void, and therefore of no consequence. The police, which has become a failed security institution, should be focused on rebuilding their national structures for effective and efficient policing of the country.
“The police should be directed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to concentrate on combating sophisticated and organised crimes just as there is the urgent need for the police to go after armed kidnappers and insurgents terrorising and killing citizens all around Nigeria especially in Kwara, North West, North Central and South East of Nigeria.
“The Nigeria Police Force should leave revenue generation efforts for the lawfully created agencies. The implementation of this unlawful policy on compelling car owners to pay for tinted glasses is ridiculing the police force,” the statement added.
