The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) would literarily be docked from today in the court of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. UCHENNA AWOM in this analysis attempts an expose on the creeping politics of new vehicle license and number plates regime in Nigeria.
These are very interesting times in Nigeria’s Senate. Going by the not too smooth handling of some crucial aspect of its oversight functions, the National Assembly seems to be stretched in the court of public opinion, thus eliciting question of propriety through intentions of the probes. Adamant though, the Senate last week warned that it will never shirk its statutory powers of investigations on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government despite the unfortunate incident in the House of Representatives. So this week, precisely between today; Tuesday and Wednesday, the Nigerians may yet be treated to a likely tempestuous investigative hearing sessions, that could have an injection of public appeasement at both chambers of the National Assembly; Senate and House of Representatives. The ground seems to be swelling and ofcourse the subject matter as passionate as it were is the driving force, which entrails passion and atervistic ego of individuals, especially the civil society community. So except wise counsel prevails, there may be another round of combustive public hearing on the controversial issue of the design, production and marketing of? Vehicle Plate Numbers, by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), in the country.
It could be recalled that a few weeks back, the Senate re-enacted a motion as was exactly the case in the House of Representatives that had now kicked off this brewing controversy. Both chambers in their resolutions barred the leadership of the FRSC from further production of the said vehicle number plates. The lawmakers cited what observers easily alluded as cheap sentiment and populist appeal as the reasons for their stand. According to them their action was informed by the economic hardship the new price regime of the vehicle number plates had imposed on the ordinary Nigerian. In fairness to them, the price had actually had a quantum jump, from something less than N10,000, to as much as N45,000 for some category of vehicles in some states of the Federation. The decision by the lawmakers to stop further production, and the media bliss that followed it, had delighted, not a few? Nigerians.?? Long before the action of the legislature, there had been an orchestrated media attacks on the leadership of the FRSC, either by editorial commentaries or opinion articles.? In some of these media works, the Nigerian public was said to have been deliberately misinformed about the statutory roles of the Commission. While some had somewhat ignorantly, argued that it is not the function of the FRSC to go into the business of producing Vehicle number plates, others postulated that by so doing, the commission had snatched the revenue yielding ventures of some other government agencies. Yet others, in an effort to stretch the populist perspective, claimed that the commission had abandoned its primary assignment of keeping accidents off the roads, to becoming a revenue generating organization. It will therefore, not be an over statement? to posit here that there seems some kind of inferences that failed to capture the reality. That being the case, public commentators who are sympathetic to the commission opined that such uncomplimentary inputations may have been the tonic needed by the National Assembly members to bring down the sledge hammer on the FRSC.
Today that position is assuming a character of its own with many discerning observers declaring the resolution as being both illegal and irrational. Perhaps the Act that empowers the commission should perused to decipher the truth and establish if the action of the National Assembly infrared on the commission’s right.?? The law which is an Act of the National Assembly was enacted in 2007 and it spells out the duties or functions of the commission. That piece of legislation is known as? Federal Road Safety Commission [Establishment ] ACT, 2007. In Part 11, Section 10 of it talks about the Establishment, Functions? and Rank of Members of Road Safety Corps. Part 3[d]of this Section says that the commission has the responsibility for:”designing and producing? the driver’s licence to be used by various categories of vehicle operators”. The next, part 3[e], emphatically says that the? FRSC is also charged with the responsibility for “determining, from time to time, the requirements to be satisfied by an applicant for a driver’s licence”. [f] also says that the commission equally has the responsibility for “DESIGNING AND PRODUCING? VEHICLE NUMBER PLATES”. There are other responsibilities the ACT conferred on the FRSC, about 22 of them in all, including [o],which has to do with, “making regulations in pursuance of any of the functions assigned to the corps by or under this ACT” The essence of reproducing these various? provisions of the ACT that established the Corps, becomes necessary, at least, to clear the lingering doubt in some quarters , as to who has the powers to do what. What this means is that the Federal Road Safety Commission is the only body legally authorized to design and produce vehicle number plates in Nigeria.
The next argument happens to be the cost of these Vehicle number plates produced by the Road Safety.? In a motion he moved on? Wednesday, February 29, 2012, titled “Hardship Occasioned by the New Number Plates? and Driver’s? Licence Scheme of the Federal Road Safety Commission, Senator Dahiru Awaisu Kuta [Niger-East], posited, among other things,?? that “Senate observes also? that the new driver’s licence? which the commission launched in 2011,is now issued for six thousand Naira, from the former three thousand Naira while the new number plates has suddenly jumped from its original five thousand Naira, to an astronomical fifteen thousand Naira, with those of trucks and other categories of vehicles put at between twenty and forty thousand Naira, and that the commission will ultimately be generating a whooping two billion Naira annually, as its own share of the new scheme”. The Senator? alleged also, that the Senate was worried that “the exorbitant cost of the driver’s licences and vehicle number plates, have incurred? outrage and rejection by the majority of Nigerians because they are financially impoverished and therefore the amount exploitative, prohibitive and insensitive, for a population that is already facing the challenges of hash economic condition”. He added also that the Senate, ”worried also that the August 31, 2012 dateline issued by the commission, for the enforcement of the new scheme, is not feasible because the current demand for vehicle licence, surpasses supply and they are subjecting? applicants to wait for as long as three months after payment, before receiving number plates”. As a result of these point s he raised, Senator Kuta urged his colleagues to ”condemn”, what he called? the “price regime of the new scheme of drivers’ licence and Vehicle number plates , by the Federal Road Safety Commission [FRSC] in 2011”. He? also urged? his colleague s to prevail on the commission, ”to suspend forthwith the implementation of the new drivers’ licence and vehicle? number plates”.?
The position of the Senators expectedly is generating cold blood between them and those championing the course of the FRSC. In a venomous language they said; “In as much as one agrees? with the fact that the? Senators have the constitutional? protection to engage in this type of oversight function, Nigerians who? have knowledge of what is going on, have not failed to blame them for acting in? manner that appear to be based on falsehood”. The basic argument of some of those who volunteered to speak on this issue of price regime, is that “the Senators shot wide off mark and had succeeded to misinform Nigerians”. Speaking on the issue which takes centre stage this week, a top civil servant in Abuja said the FRSC is not the institution to blame for the hardship visited on Nigerians as a result of the hike in the price of the vehicle number plates. The man who would not want his name in prints, pointed out that the commission, in agreement with the decision of the Joint Tax Board [JTB], issues out the number plates at N15,000, to those states that apply for them. In turn, the states, through their boards of internal revenue, fix the prices at which the number plates could be obtained .He said that rather than make a scapegoat of the management of FRSC, the lawmakers ought to hold the states responsible for the hike in price.????? Speaking on the same issue in a radio programme last Friday in Abuja, Paul Momoh, a legal practitioner, said the research he carried out on the matter, showed that it is the state governments whose actions caused the price hike. He stated that his findings were that FRSC supplies the vehicle number plates to the states at the officially approved price of N15,000 but the states push up the price to as much as N45,000. Momoh also slammed the lawmakers for ordering the stoppage of production of the number plates, adding that the decision was not taken in public interest. He however blamed the commission, for not making information available to the general public, on the processes that are undertaken before the product gets to the end user. The Chief Executive of the FRSC, or the Corps Marshall, as he is usually addressed, Chief Osita Chidoka, was not available for comments last Friday, but staffers of the commission, hiding under the civil service rule, refused to talk. However, a few days back, Chidoka who was on an interview programme on CHANNELS television had blamed the activities of touts in some states for the hike in the price of vehicle number plates. As? both the Senate and House of Representative committees in this regard commence their public hearing on this matter this week, not a few Nigerians? hope that the real issues will be addressed rather than what usually appear as muscle-flexing on the part of the legislatures. It is expected that they will also tell the Nigerian public the truth about the constitutional rights of the FRSC, with regards to its functions and duties instead of making the public go with the wrong impression that the commission engages in the usurpation of duties of other institutions of government, as some media commentaries had tried to paint it in recent times.? The law makers will also be doing those who sent them to the National Assembly some good, if they could probe? why in some states, the statutory body, such as the Board of Internal Revenue, which function it to organize the sale of? Vehicle? number plates or driver’s Licence , are not allowed to do so. Well, it promises to be an explosive event and ofcourse the public waits with keen interest.
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