NIGERIA, by all standards, is a peculiar country. Here is a country in which many queer developments in civilized world are never seen as strange. The system of governance in this country is so inconsistent that discordant tunes from the same ministry or government department are sung from time to time only to throw the public into confusion.

Currently, a legal tug of war is raging between Nigeria Police Force, NPF, and the Federal Roads Safety Corps, FRSC, to the embarrassment of the populace.

The bone of contention between the two official bodies is the legal right to issue Biometric Central Motor Registry, BCMR. Long before now, the police had statutorily been charged with the duty of issuing CMR albeit without biometric technology.

Any Nigerian vehicle owner knows that the authority to issue CMR is officially vested in the Police. But like in any other thing that may involve money in this country, it is not strange that the newly introduced biometric data system is generating unnecessary controversy.

For decades before now, CMR had been issued only by the Police without any controversy. The need to bring in the idea of biometric technology is necessitated by the rising rate of crimes in the land which only that technology can curb or minimize. And no corporate body other than the Police is authorized to prevent or combat crimes in Nigeria. That is why the cases of car theft or accidents or even tout fracas at garages are reported to the Police and no other government agents. Even the State Secret Service, SSS, is only authorized to investigate criminal activities and not to fight such activities physically.

The motive of creating the traffic wardens (otherwise called ‘yellow fever’) as an organ of the NPF in 1977 or thereabout was to enable the conventional Police Force focus more on crimes and other related matters while it is relieved of the burden of traffic. And since crimes and traffic are closely related it will be quite odd and even suicidal to remove biometric data system from the constituency of the NPF.

Is the Police expected to go and ask FRSC for such data when they want to handle traffic-related crimes? It will be recalled that the idea of road safety which led to the employment of traffic officers in the first instance emanated from the efforts of the Nigerian Army to train its officers and men on road safety in the early 70s. And that was about 20 years after the NPF had established CMR in 1958 for the purpose of security in the traffic sector.

Though the Nigerian Army started the First Public Road Safety Campaign in 1972 when it initiated an annual Road Safety Week, the very first deliberate government policy on road safety was the creation in 1974 of the National Road Safety Commission, NRSC, by the then  Military Government. The impact of that Commission was, nevertheless, not sustained. But in 1977, the Military Administration in Oyo State established the Oyo State Road Safety Corps which made some local significant improvements in Road Safety and road discipline in the State. This lasted till 1983 when it was disbanded by the Federal Government. With the emergence of oil boom in Nigeria in the early 1970s the trend of road traffic accidents spirally escalated and turned the country into one of the most road traffic accident (RTA) prone nations in the world second only to Ethiopia. To address this dangerous trend the Nigerian Government established what is now called Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in 1988 with certain spelt out duties and functions.

Some relevant parts of such functions as contained in Decree No 45 of 1988 as amended by Decree No 35 of 1992 and as passed and named by the National  Assembly as Federal Road Safety Commission (establishment) Act 2007 which established FRSC are as follows:

•To prevent or minimize accidents on the highways and clear obstructions on any part of those highways; to educate drivers, motorists and other members of the public generally on the proper use of the highways;

•to design and produce drivers’ licenses to be used by various categories of vehicle operators and determine, from time to time, the requirements to be satisfied by an applicant for a driver’s licence;

•to design and produce vehicle number plates and  standardize highway traffic codes; to give prompt attention and care to victims of accidents and conduct researches into causes of motor accidents and methods of preventing them as well as putting into use the result of such researches;

•to determine and enforce speed limits for all categories of vehicles and adopt the use of speed limiting devices; to cooperate with other bodies or agencies or groups in road safety activities or in preventing accidents on the highways; to make regulations in pursuance of any of the functions assigned to the Corps by or under this Act;

•to regulate the use of sirens, flashers and beacon lights on vehicles other than ambulances and those belonging to the Armed Forces, Nigeria Police, Fire Service and other Para-military agencies;

•to  provide roadside and mobile clinics for the treatment of accident victims free of charge;

At the end of the listed functions it is stated that: In exercising these functions, members of the Commission shall have power to arrest and prosecute persons reasonably suspected of having committed any traffic offence.

The duties and functions of NPF and those of FRSC spelt out in the acts that established them are clear and distinct. The only overlapping area is that of the control of BCMR. But what is strange in this area and which may amount to usurpation of NPF’s responsibility by the FRSC is the struggle to want to control the BCMR without wanting to assume the security implications it entails.

If the FRSC wants to take over the traffic aspect of NPF’s responsibility it must also be ready to bear the security implications involved including handling of crimes. You cannot be responsible for BCMR because of the money involved without being responsible for the security risk and implications involved. As agents of the governments, both bodies can still endeavour to understand their differences and harmonize their duties and functions without washing their linens in the open.

However, rather than focusing on generating funds for the government, which is not part of its statutory duties, the FRSC should concentrate on saving lives on Nigerian roads and remain within the confines of its functions. To serve one’s fatherland with dedication according to rules is more dignified than scrambling for money in deviance to rules and regulations.

Nothing in its statutory duties and functions empowers the FRSC to generate funds for the government or anybody and the traffic  agency should not trespass by going beyond its mandate.

By Femi Abbas