FCTA’s ‘park and pay’ policy exploitative, obnoxious venture – Abuja lawyer

An Abuja-based lawyer, Mr. Obioma Ezenwobodo, said the recent plan by the Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA) to reintroduce park and pay policy in the FCT shows the utter disconnection between the government and the governed in Nigeria.

Ezenwobodo, who is the Chairman of the Garki branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), said in a statement that, “In a time when Nigerians and residents of the FCT are experiencing biting hardship due to the sudden withdrawal of fuel subsidy, the least the FCTA, which is a primary beneficiary of the subsidy removal, could do is to enact a policy that would further tithing the noose on innocent motorists in the FCT”. 

He said the same policy was in operation in the FCT before it was nullified by Justice Peter Affen of the FCT High Court, Apo Abuja in 2014 and added that, before then, roads in the FCT were partitioned to different unregulated contractors who unleashed all manner of touts and street urchins to harass, intimidate and exploit innocent motorists and residents under the guise of restoring sanity on the roads.

“Such was the level of carnage before they were sent parking by the court. The renewed attempt by the authority of the FCTA to reintroduce this policy under the belief that it has acquired necessary legality is deceptive and lacking legal basis”.  

According to Ezenwobodo, the FCTA should not capitalize on its inability to provide an affordable and efficient public transport system in the FCT to impose obnoxious levies on innocent motorists who are filling the gap by providing their own transport system. 

He advised the FCTA to concern itself with ways of alleviating the hardships residents of the FCT are undergoing and this, according to him, can be done by reintroducing the defunct “El’Rufai” Bus Shuttles as palliative measures for the benefits of the residents. 

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