If an opinion poll is conducted to find out the greatest intimidation faced by motorists in Nigeria generally, those at who accusing fingers will be pointed are none other than the traffic officers who are spread all over Nigeria’s roads like a plague each with a dastardly mission of extortion.
No matter whatever names they are called, there are ample evidences to prove that their operations are similar and also with the same damning effects on motorists who are most times reduced to mere slaves by those who have turned their assignments to a very big avenue of oppression, and quite unfortunately without anyone to call them to order in a most convincing manner.
It’s a big headache that in Nigeria, there are agencies with overlapping functions all in the bid to create employment for the citizens. But even when the purpose of the government is both noble and desirable, the operation of traffic officers has however continued to put a sour taste in the mouths of motorists who contend with so many unwarranted assaults and insults on the roads on daily basis by those who feel it is their constitutional right to use their engagement by the state for self aggrandizement by fire by force.
Originally, those saddled with the responsibility of managing traffic on the Nigerian roads were the Traffic Warden Service whose operation commenced in 1975 as a section of the Nigerian police discharging function in connection with the control and regulation of, or enforcement of the law relating to road traffic under the direction of the police.
But as the years went by, a combination of poor attitude to work and absence of adequate care by the government rendered the traffic wardens utterly ineffective, and their impact was not being felt as desirable. Hence by February, 1988, the federal government came up with another idea of the Federal Roads Safety Corps through Decree Number 45 of 1988 as amended by Decree Number 35 of 1992.
The main objectives of setting the agency up were to assist in preventing and minimising accidents on the highways, clearing obstructions on any part of the highways and educating drivers and motorists about the use of the highways. In each of these stated objectives, it is difficult to pinpoint anyone in which members of the agency have been able to live up to expectation.
And since their operations are concentrated mostly on federal roads, some state governments also started to come up with their own ideas. For instance, there was the creation of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority otherwise called LASTMA on July 15, 2000 by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and then later the Vehicles Inspection Service by Governor Raji Fashola on August 2, 2012. While LASTMA was created with the responsibility of control, management and regulation of traffic-related matters within the Lagos metropolis, the VIS was to allow the government to confirm that each individual vehicle complies with the regulation and that each user is conducting the vehicle maintenance properly. Again, by August 2017, a new regulation came on steam to enable road users to know the status of their vehicles by going through series of tests.
Looking critically at the two agencies created by the Lagos State government, one would see that the tasks performed by these two bodies can be handled by only one of them quite perfectly making such overlapping of functions clearly unnecessary. But since the understanding has always been along the path of creating employment for the teeming unemployed youths, the public have never been known to raise any eyebrows. That was how everything brought forward by the state government ostensibly to ease traffic congestion was welcomed with open arms until their handshakes began to extend beyond the wrist! To drive on Lagos roads now is to be subjected to severe and unwarranted headaches by these extremely arrogant agencies of the state and their activities have led so many people to their untimely deaths.
The most annoying aspect is that all their harsh postures are directed only at innocent car owners while commercial vehicles operators with mostly completely rickety vehicles and uniformed men are spared any of their embarrassments. Traffic officers hide under their being used by the state to shore up internally generated revenue to unleash a regime of clandestine extortion under the flimsiest excuse including little dents on vehicles or lamps, tyres not new or a slight chip on the windscreens through threats of impounding vehicles whose owners are not ready to play ball.
By so doing, they made themselves the number one public enemy hated by almost everybody except members of their own families. The Endsars was a good time for members of the public to show their complete anger and total displeasure at their activities as most of their offices were razed down and whoever among them was captured severely dealt with. This ought not be so if these agencies are established with proper codes of conduct that prioritize respect for the citizens rights. Yet, no lesson seems to have been learnt so far, as the oppression of members of the public has continued unabated.
The solution now is for the agencies to be restructured and given new orientation with a view to making them truly people-friendly. More attention should be focused mainly on traffic control while apprehending whoever breaks traffic rules can be done electronically by linking driver’s license with the NIN and getting the correct details of every motorist. Involving traffic officers in revenue generation is where their high-handedness comes from and must be discontinued forthwith.
Tolling of roads is the method adopted in the advanced world to gear up internally generated revenues by the respective states, not by sending traffic officers to become terrors on the roads. That can be replicated here provided our roads can be top-notch so that motorists would be delighted to comply willingly. Vehicles can also be given general clearance maybe twice a year whereby motorists can drive freely without any embarrassments or harassment by traffic officers.
Oyewusi coordinator of Ethics Watch International wrote in from Lagos.
