FACTS emerged in Abuja at the weekend that President
Goodluck Jonathan personally stopped the scrapping or merger of the Federal
Road Safety Corps (FRSC) with the police as recommended by the Steve Oronsaye
Committee report.
This is even
as the Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of FRSC, Mr Osita Chidoka, said that
he sustained “many bullet wounds” in the battle to save the soul of the corps.
In spite of
intrigues and intricacies that played in the move to scrap the corps, it was
gathered that Jonathan could not found convincing evidence why FRSC must be
scrapped or merged with the police or any other agency.
It was gathered
that when the recommendation for scrapping of FRSC was presented to the
president, the Oronsaye-led Presidential Committee on Restructuring and
Rationalisation of Government Ministries, Parastatal and Agencies could not
convince him on the need to scrap the corps.
Jonathan, it
was gathered, had argued that FRSC was an agency he visited and saw that “it is
working.”
It will be
recalled that President Jonathan personally launched the new driver licence and
vehicle number plates at the FRSC headquarters, Abuja.
Meanwhile,
Chidoka relived his ordeal in the struggle to retain the FRSC while addressing
officers and men of the corps on the recent award of ISO 9001:2008 Quality
Management Certificate to FRSC by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON).
He said there
were many battles from all fronts to see that FRSC was either merged with the
police or scrapped.
He said the
people who declared the war were shooting without looking back, saying this had
left him bruised and with many bullet wounds.
Chidoka
revealed that the Oronsaye Committee put a compelling argument that when FRSC,
Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and other agencies are
either scrapped or merged, the government would rake in over N100 billion
to be put in the budget and could be used for completion of Lagos-Ibadan
Expressway and other infrastructure.
He said: “But
when everybody looked at the complexity of organisations like FRSC, the nature
of the work we do and evidence of the work we do, it was difficult to convince
the Federal Executive Council (FEC) about that.
“While you
were sleeping, while you were in your home or while you were arguing on what
should be done and what not to be done, we did not sleep for weeks trying to
fight for the soul of this organisation. Because the final push came from a
very powerful source, who said yes, we can do it. What we can do is to move the
staff out so that we can have a smaller group that can come under the Ministry
of Works. And it looks like a very genuine and honest argument on how it can be
done.
“At the end of
the day, we overcame, and we overcame because we are a working organisation.
But I have too many bullet wounds in the course of these battles, because they
were shooting without looking back from all sides.”
“With all that
happened if you read Oronsaye report, it says “FRSC is a proactive organisation
which has distinguished itself and has done well in many ways.” So, everybody
asked him, how can you come to this analysis and then come to the conclusion
that they should not exist?”
In all the
intrigues, Chidoka added that FRSC came unscathed, “because there is nowhere
you can fault that FRSC is delivering on its mandate.”
He, however,
told the staffers that the ISO 90001:2008 certification had placed additional
burden on the corps to improve more on its performance.
Tags
Politics