There must be something the Nigeria Police Force find irresistible about roads. The urge in the security agency and its men to be out on the roads for sundry enforcements, is amazing.
It does appear, that there is a god of the roads, that never stops beckoning to the police. And they just cannot resist him. They have to device a means of getting out there on the road. There must always be one regulation or another, to enforce, out there.
In Imo State, the Police Commissioner, Aboki Danjuma, has reportedly taken the matter one notch above what used to exist. In response to the rising cry and complaint of citizens, over suffocating acts of policemen on roads and checkpoints, Mr. Danjuma obviously, could not imagine the option of withdrawing policemen from the roads. He got creative. He created another layer, a monitoring team of policemen to oversee the activities of the policemen out on the roads, within the state. That is to say, more men on the roads, to supervise the other men already on the roads.
Last year, 2024, the leadership of Nigeria Police Force, under Kayode Egbetokun as Inspector General, came up with the idea of establishing and operating a Central Motor Registry Information System(e-CMR). The essence of the initiative, as the justification came, was to enhance the primary responsibility of the Police, in protecting lives and property of persons and entities in the country. From the deduction of the Police authorities, automobiles are significant private and public property in Nigeria. Consequently, the Police leadership, thought up the idea of the e-CMR, “to enable motor vehicle owners seamlessly apply for Nigeria Police Central Registry Information about vehicle ownership and other details that will be useful in the investigation of motor vehicle theft and recovery and national security”. It sounded very patriotic. Vehicle owners were to pay N5000 annually for the scheme.
The Egbetokun-led Police authority announced the impending commencement of the scheme and had prepared its ever-ready men to take to the roads to commence enforcement of compliance to the new e-CMR regime.
Nigerians, however, vehemently opposed the e-CMR scheme. Public criticism of the initiative was loud. The first point raised against Egbetokun’s e-CMR, was, that it was, to all intents and purposes, a duplication of existing vehicle registration scheme in the country.
If the e-CMR was to replace annual vehicle documents renewal, there would have been an arguable justification for it, but it was to be another layer of charges on hapless Nigerians. Introducing another means of getting Nigerian motorists to pay for the same vehicle papers they mandatorily pay in renewing the particulars, did not sit well with anyone, no matter how modern the IGP Egbetokun proposition was made to appear.
The uproar against the proposed scheme was quite strident, forcing the Police leadership to back off. The IGP eventually announced suspension of the project. This staved off the prospect of policemen trooping out to the roads, on the new assignment of checking compliance to e-CMR.
Again, towards the end of 2024, either by coincidence, or in response to the British Conservative Party leader, Ms Kemi Badenoch’s scathing evidence-based remarks about the opprobrious conducts common to the police in Nigeria, IGP Egbetokun caused a directive to go out to his men on the roads, to behave themselves, as it were. The IGP directed policemen on the roads, to desist from whimsically arresting and harassing youths.
The practice of policemen waylaying and unjustifiably arresting young boys, seizing their telephones and lap tops, had assumed an epidemic, especially in Lagos and in the South East, where every security personnel is a lord unto himself, and the citizens, their hostage.
The situation where policemen on the roads, swiftly descended on young adults in flashy cars or with expensive gadgets, had become something of a personal war, a vendetta by policemen, who could not stomach the luxurious life style of those young citizens, against the backdrop of their own apparent tough luck.
Tales of young men paying various amounts (ransom of sorts) to retrieve either their seized gadgets or themselves, as the case may be, from security men on assignments, on the roads, abound. Those of them who dyed their hair in fanciful colours, have even more harrowing tales to tell. In other words, in addition to their routine security details, policemen on the roads also took up the job of culture czars, of sorts. Their perception of a young citizen and how he or she dressed, became the basis for harassment and at instances, arrest. All part of maintaining law and order. Hopefully, the IGP’s directive brought some reprieve to many youths.
Last week, prompted once more, as it seems, by that ever-present urge to send out policemen to the roads, IGP Egbetokun announced, in the course of receiving visiting executives of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), that with effect from February 1 2025, the police will commence enforcement of compliance to the law requiring all motorists to have third party insurance.
The implication of that innocuous announcement, is that, barring any intervening circumstance, policemen will be out on the roads from February 1 2025, to begin to check motorists who have, or do not have, third party insurance.
Mr. Egbetokun copiously quoted the provisions of the law on motorists having third party insurance, as if he needed to convince anyone.
There is not much to argue about the provisions of the law on third party insurance. It may be pertinent, however, for the IGP to note that the 2007 Act that established the Federal Road Safety Commission, assigns to that agency the task of apprehending drivers with faulty driver’s license and insurance papers. In other words, the Police does not need to take to the roads to enforce the provisions of the law on third-party insurance.
Then again, there must be better and less disruptive ways of enforcing compliance to these rules. Every motorist inevitably goes to renew his vehicle papers at the due time, annually. Purchase of third-party insurance as a mandatory part of the vehicle papers renewal can be an efficient means of meeting the same target.
It took the ruling of the Federal High Court in Abuja to get Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) off the back of motorists. Even that is not totally settled. When the spirit or whatever, moves some of the men of that agency, they still spill into the roads. Of course, the Federal Road Safety Corps is still around. A better synergy among the agencies can see to an efficient and less chaotic enforcement of provisions on third party insurance. The Police does not need to take to the roads by February 1, or at any other time, to enforce compliance on third party insurance.
A Police service that is as pressed as the Nigeria Police Force, with barely 380,000 men (actually 371,800, according to the precise statistics), servicing a population of 200 million citizens (or thereabout, as Nigeria ascribes to itself), must manage its limited manpower judiciously. It hardly makes sense that after politically exposed persons and prime public officials have been allocated a chunk of policemen, the remaining servicemen will be on the roads. The distractions, disruptions and temptations do not help either Nigeria Police, or the society.
It will be uncharitable not to acknowledge that men of the Nigeria Police do acquit themselves commendably, at various critical junctures. Unfortunately, the reprehensible conduct of a number of the men of the agency, do enormous damage to the image of the Force. It is important,however, that the leadership of Nigeria Police Force, do everything necessary to minimize arrangements that expose policemen to temptation. One of such situations is to save them from being on the roads too often. The roads seem to bring out the worst in policemen in Nigeria.
The announcement, or threat, that policemen will be unleashed on the roads, in early February,2025, to enforce compliance to third party insurance, should be re-examined. Neither the Police (as an institution), nor the society, at large, will be better off for it.
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Andy Ezeani is a Nigerian journalist and media consultant. Trained at the University of Lagos, Nigeria and the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, he is a newspaper columnist and former Editor, Daily Champion.
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