FEMI OWOEYE
A call for getting rid of the Federal Road safety Corps (FRSC) resonated again recently. Though not as laud as it was before the year 2000, it keeps replaying. A major argument against the commission is hinged on duplication of rolls, which has been a subject of debates.
Another one is corruption, manifestation of which is a sign the FRSC might have lost its founding values. Sadly, many of the present crop of regular marshals seem to be unfamiliar with the moral measure and core values of the commission. For instance, from 1988 to 1998, it would be unimaginable of a marshal to engage in extortion or any form of corruption while on duty.
Founded with a vision to eradicate road traffic crashes and create safe motoring environment in Nigeria, the FRSC was also laden with a mission divided into: sustained public enlightenment, promotion of stakeholder’s cooperation, robust data management and improved vehicle administration.
Most visible of the corps’ mission happens to be vehicle administration, which include: enforcement of traffic laws, checking roadworthiness of vehicles, issuing driver’s licenses, issuing of vehicle registration plates, traffic accidents investigation, patrol and rescue services, clearing obstructions on the highways, among others.
In the process of carrying out the foregoing, regular marshals are expected to enforce traffic laws and issue citations (official warnings or penalty tickets to violators of traffic rules).
Unfortunately, the Corps has over the years been infested with bad eggs, whose conducts are at variance with its mission, a development that partly elicits the call for cancellation of the commission.
Created through Decree No. 45 of 1988, which was amended by Decree 35 of 1992, the FRSC would have either been merged with the police or disbanded had the National Assembly not, in 2007, passed into law the Federal Road Safety commission Act.
Courtesy of the founding fathers, the FRSC was built  on four core values of transparency, fairness, timeliness and Service Orientation.
Without its founding core values, the commission remains only as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. To keep the Corps alive, therefore, its board needs to urgently revisit the founding core values, do an urgent internal cleansing and devise an effective modality to weed out the bad eggs on the field. This can be achieved adopting the use of plainclothes highway inspectors.
Second, the board and management need to consult the corps’ founding Chairman and Chief Executive in the name of the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka and Dr. olu Agunloye and tap from their unwritten modus operandi that made the commission so successful during its first decade.
For instance, the corps used to work closely with the motoring media. Not anymore. I remember, in the 90s, some of us dutifully had regular road safety column on our motoring pages. We were also kept abreast of every development and activities.
I recall the founding Corps Marshal used to once in a while patrol the highway in an unmarked vehicle. In 1991, I was privileged to ride with Dr. Agunloye during one of such operations. Whenever he found an over-speeding vehicle, he issued a warning and advice, which was loudly heard from a speaker attached to an out part of the unmarked vehicle. This sent a message to motorists, who would suddenly form a convoy behind the car. None would dare overtake until he stretched out his hand and beacon on motorists to overtake. Even at that, overtaking motorists automatically maintained speed limit.
Then what happened to the speed limiting device introduced in 2016 and started enforcement February 2017?
What has become of the regular marshals’ body cameras proposed under Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi? While bearing of firearm is not advisable, body cameras would complement the adoption of plainclothes inspectors suggested above. With the two, bad eggs within the corps would either toe the line or get weeded out.
On the duplication of roles, the only aspect that could be said to be duplication is that of the VIOs (Vehicle Inspection Officers). However, if any department should be disbanded, it is the VIOs, mostly idle civil servants under the control of state governments. A vehicle inspection arm should be added to the FRSC for effectiveness. For instance, how Certificate of Roadworthiness is issued in most states of the federation is a joke, no thanks to the VIOs.
Under normal circumstance, every vehicle should annually be inspected at the states’ VIO workshop before any Certificate of Roadworthiness is issued – something akin to the MOT in UK, which the Lagos state government of Nigeria has imbibed.
On the contrary, in most states of the federation, once vehicle particulars expire, all a motorist does is approach a States’ Inland Revenue office, make necessary payments for renewals and without VIO sighting the vehicle, a certificate of roadworthiness is issued alongside Vehicle License (Road Tax) and Insurance. That’s the practice.
Sadly, FRSC’s Marshals do not seem to know that part of their mandates is to check vehicles’ roadworthiness. They have been known to stop dilapidated commercial vehicles and let them off after extortion. The indiscipline or ignorance has eaten so deep into the corps that FRSC patrol vehicles have been found to ride on expired tyres.
Notwithstanding, albeit the corps has obviously abandoned one or two of its values, it is unwise to throw the baby away with the bath water. The federal government needs to give the current management of the Corps a matching order to sanitize the system and call up transparency, fairness, discipline, timeliness, Service Orientation and other operational values put in place by the founding fathers of the commission.
It would be a shame to allow the FRSC to die. We should remember that, at some points in the history, it was an envy of many nations across world.
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