As far as the controversies over faded number plates are concerned, there are lessons for men of the Federal Roads Safety Corps (FRSC) to learn from sister agencies; SUNNY IDACHABA writes....CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING.>>
For a while now, the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) has been in the news for right or wrong reasons. Its personnel have been in altercation with road users over faded number plates with the latter resisting their vehicles from being impounded despite official directives.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!It could be recalled that the former Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi while in that capacity directed that all vehicles with faded plate numbers or those whose numbers be impounded while the respective car owners would pay a fine before replacement. According to the text of the directive, any plate number whose inscription cannot be read six metres away is considered faded.
The FRSC authorities, no doubt, have their reason for giving such orders. First, it bothers in security and secondly, it is a source of revenue generation for the commission. Good as these intentions were, in almost every state across the country, implementing the policy often met a brick wall as it constantly led to altercations between the ‘implementers’ and road users.
To the road users, it is not their fault that those plates are faded and, therefore, should not take the punishment. To others, it is the responsibility of the commission which produced them to replace all such rather than vehicle owners taking responsibility for replacement.
In Lagos, for instance, the matter assumed a war-like dimension between FRSC men and vehicle owners often resulting in a near-fisty-cuffs. In the process, sometimes, instead of the traffic to flow without hindrance, the gridlock associated with the implementation of the order became a source of concern.
Worried by the development probably as a result of his own experiences, a road user, Chinwike Chamberlain Ezebube, approached a Lagos High Court seeking an order to declare the impounding of vehicles by FRSC as illegal.
Delivering judgement on the suit, Justice Akintayo Aluko made an order restricting the Corps from imposing any fine or punishment on any driver for driving with a faded number plate as according to him, the FRSC has no right, henceforth, to arrest motorists with faded number plates on their vehicles.
Rather than outright impounding of vehicles, the judgement in a suit marked FHC/L/C5/253/2024 directed the plaintiff to merely approach the defendant (FRSC) for the replacement of his faded vehicle number plate and that the defendant shall replace the same upon payment of a reasonable fee. To many road users, it was a landmark judgement as it brought relief to a lot of vehicle owners.
In defence of FRSC?
A newspaper columnist, Abdul Jelili, while commenting on the judgement likened it to what the late Lagos lawyer, Gani Fawhinmi, who died years back when his political association failed to get the nod of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration. The fiery lawyer had approached the court and got a judgement that liberalised party registration in the country today.
According to Jelili, the recent court judgement against the FRSC can be said to be similar, but might not augur well with the fights against crimes in the society.
In his view, “faded number plates can be a concern for road safety and law enforcement.”
He noted that the purpose of using a number plate is for proper identification and security as it is equally personalised for each vehicle.
Making further clarification, he noted that, “A vehicle can be used to commit crime and if that happens, FRSC can track it on its National Vehicle Identification Scheme.”
He said, “In spite of the court judgement, the offence of faded number plates had been in the FRSC system since inception and was captured under number plate violation.”
Quoting the FRSC Act, Jelili said, “There are so many offences rated under the number plate violation such as broken number plate, faded number plate, covered number plate, non-use of number plate and we have misuse of number plate. The misuse of the number plate means that one is using a private number plate for commercial use.”
Different strokes
While Jelili appeared to have worn the toga of unofficial spokesperson of the commission, a former newspaper editor, Bolanle Bolawole has a different stroke. According to him, the road marshals need to borrow a leaf or rather emulate the rebranded, ‘born again’ status of the once-dreaded LASTMA officials.
He asked rhetorically, “Have you encountered officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency lately? They appear to have turned a new leaf. Is it a make-belief or it’s for real? Is it fleeting or it’s what the Lord has done, which a Christian song says shall be permanent?”
While lashing out in anger at the agency, he said, “In times past, you would not find a government agency so uncouth, rude, unruly, bad- tempered, so oppressive in fact, so anything bad and negative as LASTMA. It is like they were consciously selected, specially trained, and specifically charged to make life miserable for commuters.”
According to him, LASTMA of old had scant regard for anyone and no respect for the law they were supposed to enforce. To them, it was like their assigned duty was to fleece the people at every turn and whosoever felt bold enough to raise an eyebrow was to be inflicted with pains that would last for a lifetime.
He, however, said the new LASTMA officials appear to have seen the light and have turned a new leaf.
“They have repented from their evil ways and are now born-again. These days they look better dressed and well behaved. They greet you warmly, they flash a smile and if you are in difficulties and beckon them, they respond promptly and put you through. In the past, it was their devil-given opportunity to jump in your car, threaten you, call you names and begin to bargain with you on how much you must part ways with or they confiscate your car and take you to their station,” he said.
This former editor wants the FRSC to learn from the rebranded LASTMA, saying, “My wife was coming home from work when she was accosted by some FRSC officials at Apapa on account of what they called ‘faded number plate.’ She called me and I forwarded to her a recent Federal High Court judgment that says FRSC should not accost any motorist on account of faded number plates.
“When she told them that, they added another ‘offence’ of what they called ‘fire extinguisher violation.’ She had recently purchased a new fire extinguisher when she was told the previous one had expired; both were in the car but her explanations fell on deaf ears as the FRSC men were bent on collecting ‘something’ from her, which she witnessed them do right, left and centre with other motorists.
“When she made efforts to record their nefarious activities, they tried to snatch her phone from her. All the same, she managed to snap the photographs of two of them: L. U. Uka (female and the head of the team) and S. Singdep (male). They issued her a ticket and insisted they had impounded her car.
“As a senior citizen and a doyen of the journalism profession, I got the details of the FRSC Lagos State Public Relations Officer and reported the matter to her. Her response calmed frayed nerves.
“I strongly believe that the issue of so-called faded number plates should stop being a gold mine for corrupt officials, be they FRSC or others, especially in these austere times.”
Continuing, he said, “Probably, this is the best time for the government to take a hard look at the Steve Oronsaye Report on rationalisation of federal government’s sprawling bureaucracy that trumps efficient service delivery, escalates cost of governance, and spews corruption and oppression all over the place.
“This may be a wake-up call on the FRSC to emulate LASTMA. I suspect that it is not spirits or angels that descended from the sky to engineer the remarkable transformation I witnessed in LASTMA.”
Road users over-burdened
On his part, a concerned road user, Eugene Enahoro, said the present situation does not call for further hardship on road users.
“Considering the current state of the economy, it is outrageous to impose upon citizens a penalty of up to N20, 000 for ‘faded’ number plates which only FRSC men determine. The issue of faded number plates is big business for the FRSC members who now take it upon themselves to harass all non-government vehicles, including mothers taking their children on school run, and detain travellers in the middle of nowhere on the highways.”
FRSC’s reaction
Bisi Kazeem, a former spokesperson of FRSC, had said, “What we have been saying is that driving a vehicle with a faded number plate is like living with neighbours who do not have identities, and that is a huge security risk to other road users. This is because miscreants, kidnappers, terrorists as well as other enemies of the state can leverage that gap to commit heinous crimes because their identities are masked.
“The emphasis I think should be channelled into educating people so that owners of faded number plates can replace them rather than devoting energy to whether or not an arrest is imminent.”
It is now left for the FRSC to avoid anything that would damage its reputation so that it does not go the way of the FCT Traffic Management Authority, otherwise known as VIO.
