RE: FRSC’s ILLEGAL NEW NUMBER PLATE (PUNCH’S EDITORIAL OF APRIL 17TH, 2014)

After much deliberation on the continuous posture of Punch in finding faults in the Federal Road Safety Corps and its present leadership, we finally resolved to react to its Editorial of Monday, April 7^th, 2014. Our position on previous publications had been to enlighten Punch on key issues, prompting a visit to the Editorial Board on 17^th August, 2012, to eliminate misconceptions on FRSC’s mandates and initiatives. In the April 7^th Editorial, misleadingly titled “FRSC’s Illegal New Number Plate”, Punch kept its tradition of using street information and rumours mixed with media reports.

For the records, the relief sought at the Lagos Federal High Court was not on the legality of the new number plate, but the absence of a valid law proscribing the old one. The reliefs were: 1. “An order of the Honourable Court declaring that threatening to arrest and/or arresting the Applicant and/or impounding his Toyota Camry Car with Registration No. GT 454 AAA as from 1/10/2013 or any other date for using a vehicle number plate which is in accordance with Regulation 22(10)[a] of the National Road Traffic Regulations, which is a subsidiary legislation made under the Federal Road Safety Commission Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, as revised in 2004, without any law validly made in accordance with the 1999 Constitution prohibiting the use of the said vehicle number plate and/or declaring its use an offence and defining the offence and prescribing the penalty thereof in a written law, is a violation and infringement of the Applicant’s fundamental right under Section 36[12]of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

2. “AN ORDER of injunction of the Honourable Court restraining the Respondent, its agents servants and privies from arresting the Applicant and/or impounding his said vehicle for using the said vehicle number plate without any law validly made in accordance with the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prohibiting the use of the said vehicle number plate and/or declaring its use an offence and defining the offence and the penalty thereof prescribed in a written law.” 3. “AND for such further order or other orders as the Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstances. For clarifications, the judgment reads: “Finally, I hold that the threats by the Respondent to impound vehicles of defaulters, inclusive of the Applicant over the redesigned vehicle number plates, when the plates in use so far have not been outlawed, amounts to an attempt at arbitrary use of power, which must be deprecated. In the circumstances, it is my respectful view that the Applicant is entitled to an order of injunction against the respondent. Consequently, Reliefs 1 and 2 sought by the applicant in his originating application dated 25^th September, 2013 are granted.”

Punch’s inaccuracy is exhibited by their use of road crash data. For instance, the April 16^th, 2012 publication titled “Let EFCC, ICPC, FRSC, Be”, the Newspaper used the data of 3,364 as number of people killed in road crashes in 2011, which it said was a slight reduction to 4,065 killed in 2010, then turned to now use a purported World Health Organisation data of 32,000 as number of people that died from road traffic crashes annually. These inconsistencies are evidenced by the fact that the sources of the two figures are unknown, as the WHO 2010 report (http://apps.who.int.gho.data.node.main.A997?lang=en) reported 5,279 deaths in Nigeria, but projected 53,339 deaths for 2012. The same projection was done for OECD and other African countries. However, the WHO estimated death for countries has been a subject of controversy, even in some OECD countries. An example is the United Kingdom, where 1,905 road traffic crashes were recorded whereas 2,278 were estimated.

Once regarded as the flagship of punchy journalism, the Punch has degenerated to a gross lack of respect for data and facts which is held sacred in journalism. It is worthy to note that unlike Punch, FRSC is a data-driven organization and as such respects data. While in its actual news reporting, out of the 107 news stories published between February 2^nd 2013 and April 7^th 2014, 79 of the news stories, representing 67.5% of Punch’s published stories acknowledged the positive strides of FRSC. Ironically, of the 10 Editorials written within the same period, 7, representing 70% were anti-Chidoka. One begins to wonder if Punch is engaged in a proxy war for a hidden agenda. We wish to follow Punch’s tradition of making reference to the “glorious past”, by drawing attention to the interesting fact that the present number plate concept was midwifed during those “glorious pasts” when the Uniform Licensing Scheme was initiated. Chidoka merely came in to build on this.

It is worthy of mention that the editorial made references to the effect that FRSC hardly deploys tow trucks along Lagos/Ibadan Express Way, which happens to be Punch’s universe, as its headquarters is located along that road; another factual error, as an FRSC heavy-duty tow truck is permanently stationed in Sagamu area and responds swiftly to clear road obstructions within the routes. In its usual disregard for facts on FRSC issues, Punch concealed the numerous rescue efforts of the Corps along the Lagos/Ibadan axis by alleging that its operatives appear not to remember their primary duties whenever there is “an accident induced log-jam”. Punch did not deem it necessary to inform its readers of the numerous rescue efforts on Lagos-Ibadan Road published by the same Punch on the following dates : April 2^nd, 2012 (page 4), April 16^th, 2012, (cover page), May 4^th, 2012 (page 14), December 24^th, 2012, January 21^st, 2013, June 7^th 2013 (front page), July 9^th, 2013, and others.

It is disheartening that in a bid to rationalize the hidden agenda, Punch failed to mention that FRSC under Chidoka’s watch has grown in all segments of the organization, namely: staff strength of 12,000 in 2007 to about 18,000 today; absence of internet facilities which has changed to 371 V-Sat installed in all Commands, turning it into one of the largest Wide Area Network (WAN) in the public sector; data collection that used to be an annual ritual has turned into a daily activity using the technology platform developed; the number of ambulances available to FRSC for rescue activities has grown from about 17 in 2007 to about 64 in 2013, out of which a carefully orchestrated plan to deploy them at about 75 kilometer intervals on critical highways, code-named Zebra, has commenced. To date, 24 emergency ambulance centers have been set up.

Under Chidoka’s watch, road safety studies have been incorporated by the National Council for Education and approved by Federal Executive Council (FEC), and today, primary and secondary school pupils would be availed of an educational strategy that would lead to a culture change in the future. The absence of regulatory frame-work for many facets of the road safety sector has been addressed by the introduction of standard school bus adopted by the National Council for Education. The introduction of a Driving School Standardization Programe (DSSP) that has led to the certification of 614 driving schools, creating employment for instructors and currently has about 48,000 students in driving schools around the country; a national call center, with a toll-free number 122, set up by the Chidoka-led FRSC which has received to date 4933 emergency calls and responded to these calls, saving 72,321 road crash victims rescued alive in 2013 and 16,006 as at the end of the first quarter of 2014.

Patrol vehicles, the main tools of operation in FRSC, which as at 2007, was about 170, has grown to over 454. In conjunction with FERMA, we have set up about 18 road side clinics, which in 2012, received and treated free of charge 12,314 victims comprising of 4,725 number of crash victims, and another 7,589 medical cases involving concerned road users and neighbouring communities. In similar vein, in 2011, a total of 12,212 categories of emergencies were treated free of charge at FRSC Road Side Clinics.

Still under Chidoka’s watch, a World Bank funded Safe Corridor project has delivered a Country Capacity Review, acquisition of38 patrol vehicles, 24 bikes, 6 single carrier Ambulances,1 double carrier Ambulance,4 heavy tow trucks and capacity building programmes that has taken Road Safety from a rule of the thumb road traffic control organization to a modern road safety administration that encompasses safety engineering, road safety audit, data driven road safety education, scientific accident investigation of which the report forwarded to relevant government institutions like the Federal Ministry of Works and FERMA, for remedial actions, are on the FRSC website. Since we initiated road safety audit in 2011, a total of 57 audits have been conducted while 13 reports containing recommendations were forwarded in 2013.

There is also a structured vehicle data base arising from the new number plate and a biometric-based driver’s licence, of which the Italian Police, in a letter to FRSC, acknowledged as being of a higher standard than most European countries’ driver’s licence. As at today, due to the features introduced in the upgraded licensing scheme, Nigeria secured reciprocity with several European countries and many states in the USA whereby holders of the new Nigeria drivers licence can replace same with the drivers’ licences of these European countries and the affected states in the United States of America.

FRSC under Chidoka has also designed a platform called ‘’One Driver One Record’’ which enables FRSC to track and match records of a driver with his driver licence, vehicle number plate, insurance and traffic offences in a single view, which can be shared with other security agencies for crime prevention and the promotion of national security. As observed by Punch, FRSC is conscious of the initial hiccups in the acquisition of the driver’s licence, which is to be expected as a teething problem in most new ventures, while assiduously working to expand its production centers for a seamless acquisition.

 

How the Punch can miss all of these initiatives widely reported in the media, including the Punch, baffles us. How could Punch have missed that the activities of FRSC under Chidoka led to an invitation by the Pope for Chidoka to advise the Papacy on road safety in 2010, and that a select high profile group of nations comprising of G-8 countries and representatives from South America, Middle East and Asia, called The Friends of The Decade of Action, has Nigeria in that 15-Nation group. We are still curious that Punch Editorial Board does not acknowledge the fact that Chidoka is President of West African Road Safety Organization, which has adopted Nigeria Driver’s Licence and Vehicle registration standards under the ECOWAS Regional Vehicle Administration Information System (RVAIS). It is even more disturbing that the Punch forgot to inform its readers that FRSC was declared by the World Bank as the best example of a lead agency in Africa, with recommendation that other African countries should emulate the Nigeria’s model. Already, Sierra Leone has secured technical support from the FRSC to set up its own lead agency in traffic management while Ghana is currently under-studying the FRSC model.

 

Jonas Agwu,amnipr, mcipr, mprsa,arpa
Corps Commander
Corps Public Education Officer
Federal Road Safety Commission Headquarters,
Olusegun Obasanjo way, Wuse Zone 7,
Abuja.
Tel: 08033026491