FRSC, Why the selective punishment?

In Friday, 2 December 2016, I was on a journey when I was flagged down by one hefty officer of the Federal Road Safety Commission in Toro, Bauchi State. I wound down the glass and after some pleasantries, he requested for my driving license and vehicle particulars, which I handed him. He checked and found […]

In Friday, 2 December 2016, I was on a journey when I was flagged down by one hefty officer of the Federal Road Safety Commission in Toro, Bauchi State. I wound down the glass and after some pleasantries, he requested for my driving license and vehicle particulars, which I handed him. He checked and found I was up to date. All the same, he directed that I parked properly, noting that my passenger did not put on his seatbelt and I had no fire extinguisher. The officer sarcastically said he was sorry he had already handed over my papers for me to be booked.

As the other officer was about to book me for the offences, I pleaded with him saying I cannot be 100% perfect. He listened and booked me for one of the offences. I went to a bank, paid the fine, drove to the FRSC office as directed to get a ‘release of papers permit’. He released my papers and I thanked them for rightly punishing me. No grudges for that.

But the baffling issue is, as I was leaving for the bank, a rickety and over-loaded passenger car passed without being stopped. And as I was released to go, an unregistered car was also not stopped. I even told the officer that that vehicle had no plate number, but maybe he did not hear me. Benefit of the doubt. Then as if to corroborate my thinking of a selective punishment by the FRSC, I witnessed just the following day on another highway, an officer of the Corps stopping a bus whose front passenger he observed did not put on his seatbelt. But as the bus came nearer and the officer saw it was a government vehicle, he gave way and nearly saluted!

It is said that the FRSC, as part of its regulations, attends to one road user before stopping another: even if that is the case, no road user was being attended to when these vehicles passed by the officers.

Only recently, the Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, was reported to have said drivers were deliberately killing his personnel by the roadsides for trying to enforce the law against road traffic offences. The foregoing explanation may be one of the reasons, where it happens to a frustrated, temperamental and callous driver. He would think why him only, and the devil will possess his sense of reasoning.

In essence, there is the need for the Corps Marshal to kindly and discreetly try to establish the authenticity of this claim of selective punishment with a view to correcting the anomaly.

 

 

Muslihu Aminu Pindiga, Gombe State.