Traffic congestion is a massive problem in Lagos State. This challenge, coupled with specific problems such as infrastructural weakness, demographic shift and enforcement of traffic laws, have made traffic management in the state a nightmare. In this report, GEORGE OKOJIE examines whether the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) has lived above board as traffic managers or they are simply demons on the roads.
Lagos, the undisputed commercial nerve centre of the country with dense population, has joined the league of the world’s mega cities. It at present has a population hovering between 9,013,534 announced by the National Population Commission census of 2006 and 17,553,924 claimed by the state government based on data from the independent census it conducted the same year.
?Associated with this mega city status are urban problems, prominent among which are poor infrastructure and chaotic traffic congestion.
?The need to tackle the problem may have struck the inner thought of the former state governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his team wwho created the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) in 2001.
Though the initiative has been emulated by so many state governments in the country, recruitment into the brigade has remained controversial, fuelling the belief that it’s an avenue to provide jobs for party thugs and street urchins.
?While it cannot be disputed also that LASTMA has done a commendable job in traffic management in Lagos State where traffic rules and regulations have been turned upside down by various categories of road users, the fear of LASTMA had since become the beginning of? wisdom for many motorists in the state.
Apart from becoming an instrument of extortion in the Lagos metropolis, LASTMA officials could sniff out life from any motorist who refuses to dance to the extortion tune.
?They deploy all sorts of pranks like laying traps for their would be victims to meet their financial target and pay their daily money thrift otherwise known as ‘Ajo’.
Some of the officials of LASTMA went berserk recently and inflicted pains in the hearts of late Benjamin Igbokwe’s family who the officials truncated his life for alleged traffic offence.
?Igbokwe, a father of nine who was a commercial bus driver was killed when the overzealous officials of LASTMA took laws into their hands and gave summary jungle justice.
Recounting the incident amid tears, his son, Somtochukwu Miracle Igbokwe said his dad’s ordeal started when “LASTMA officer started blowing (punching) my father on the head. My daddy was trying to use his hands to protect his head, but the LASTMA man kept hitting him with blows.
“Then he dragged my father down. In the process of pulling him out of the bus, my father fell, hit his head on the ground and died instantly”.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY was told that for two years his father, Benjamin Igbokwe, worked as a commercial bus driver, he was his loyal conductor in the Father-and-son partnership.
They lived at No. 22, Fola Shitta Street, off Abaranje, Ikotun, Lagos; worked hard every day to feed their family of nine before LASTMA inflicted indelible pains in their hearts.
But they were not so lucky to get away with their crime when a bunch of undisciplined LASTMA official meted a similar ill-treatment to one? Mr. Jonathan Odutola, who dragged the erring officials and authority to the court and secured a N500, 000 award in his favour as damages.??
Irked by their brazen act, Odutola, through his lawyer, King Ola Wilson, sued LASTMA for unlawfully impounding his car, imposing and slamming an illegal fine on him.
In the suit, he stated that sometime in March 2011, while driving his car on the Third Mainland Bridge, the car suddenly developed some mechanical faults.
?To ensure that the car did not obstruct free flow of traffic, he immediately called a towing van which towed the vehicle completely out of the road.
? He explained that he also paid the towing van operator some money for the service rendered just to save himself from harassment, adding that he later on called his mechanics to come and rescue him and the vehicle.
?Unfortunately, before his mechanics who were to work on his car arrived, some policemen patrolling the bridge came to put up some criminal antics to obtain bribe from him.
?When they could not have their way with him, they called their? compatriots in LASTMA who prevented the mechanics from fixing the fault in the car.
?Before he knew it, Odutola said he and the mechanics were thoroughly beaten and harassed by the LASTMA officials who were invited by the policemen before imposing fine on
him. He had no option than to seek redress in the court of law.
?In the landmark ruling that elicited joy from teeming Lagos motorists, Justice Okon Abang of a Federal High Court in Lagos declared that the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) lacked the power to impose fines on traffic offenders in Lagos.
?The judge also held that sections 9, 11, 12 and 13 of the law establishing LASTMA were unconstitutional and of no effect, and awarded the sum of N500,000 against LASTMA.
?He stated that the four sections of the agency’s law were contrary to section 36 of the constitution, which gives the right of fair hearing to every Nigerian, noting that LASTMA only had the power to arrest traffic offenders but lacked the powers to impose fines on them.
? He affirmed that instead, it was a court of law that had the power to impose a fine on anybody who contravenes the law submiting that the imposition of a fine on any traffic offender by LASTMA amounted to being a judge in its own cause.
?According to him, “sections 9, 11, 12, and 13 of the law establishing LASTMA are unconstitutional. They are against the spirit of section 36 of the constitution, which gives right of fair hearing to every Nigerian. Moreover, that would amount to being a judge in your own case”.
Expectedly, rising in defense of LASTMA ,the Lagos state governor, Babatunde Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said the authority has over the years improved the traffic situation in the state noting that there are rooms for improvement.?
Insisting that the authority has the right to collect fines on erring motorists, Fashola said: “Of course you will understand that all over the world, there is usually provision for either the summary payment of fine or the option of a trial and I think this is what exists really. If you cannot go for a trial, you can say you want to pay a fine.
“And I think that is the ambit on which we have been operating and those who insist on being taken to court obviously are being taken to court”.
Though the constitutional role of the court as an unbiased umpire is certainly not in doubt, the issue in contention is a typical example of the imperfections of the federalism system of government the country operates.
?To this end , LASTMA officials in defiance and utter disregard of the court ruling had since returned to the roads to carry on with their stock in trade which is harassment, extortion and imposition of fines on motorists.
When LEADERSHIP SUNDAY went to town to feel the pulse of the motorists, their opinion varied. While some felt the authority should be scrapped, others were of the view that their absence on the roads on any given day would compound the chaos on most routes.
?Ahmed Ogudipe, a petroleum engineer said? what the organisation needs is more public cooperation and understanding, saying? LASTMA is a local solution to a massive traffic problem confronting a mega city.
According to him, “There must be a reorientation process to groom the officials on modern practices. The model should be improved upon. The government needs to respond adequately to the excesses of the agency’s officials, who have variously been accused of high handedness, extortion and exhibiting corrupt tendencies. They are often seen more like a menace on the roads”.
Another motorist, Dr . (Mrs.) Kemi Adelaja, a medical doctor noted that the sins of LASTMA had long overwhelmed the positive part of the organisation. She said it had created more problems for the state government and Lagosians than it was meant to solve.
“Wanton violation of human rights has been reflected in incidents of clashes between the agency’s officials and commercial motorists. A traffic management authority is supposed to be a responsible body. Regrettably, the disposition of some of the officials with the armed policemen that accompany them leaves much to be desired.
“They can carry out their lawful duties without exhibiting force at all. The people they are dealing with are human beings, even if some motorists are recalcitrant there should be better ways of handling recalcitrant motorists.
Chief Emenike Linus, a cement dealer, told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that he still wants to believe that LASTMA initiative was conceived with good intentions, suggesting that the officials need more training and constant orientation to be more accommodating of motorists.
He urged the management to purge itself of bad eggs in its fold in line with other establishments,, urging the state government to set up a task force to monitor the operations of the officials to sanitize the traffic management team.