FG’s directive on revenue collection on the highways

THE head of the press unit in the Federal Ministry of Transport, Mr. Muhammad Idris, while addressing the press in Abuja last week, averred that the practice by state and local government officials of collecting revenues on the highways was illegal. Idris, who was reacting to the roadblocks mounted in Abia State by some staff of the state’s Passenger Integrated Manifest Scheme (ASPIMS) for revenue collection, said the activities of the officials hindered the smooth flow of traffic and constituted a disturbance to travellers from other states passing through the state. He therefore called on the security agencies to arrest any official of state or local governments caught impeding traffic on the highways anywhere in the country under the guise of revenue collection.

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Idris said: “The police and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) should not allow these agents to block the highways. This is because their operations on the highways are illegal and obstruct the movement of travellers across the country. The former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, told them that the action was wrong and illegal, and so he banned it. Unfortunately, some states still do that. But it is wrong. They have been told not to operate on the highways. Nobody has the right to block the highways except the security agencies  during emergency situations.”

For years now, it has become a standard practice for state and local government officials to waylay people who travel on the highways in order to collect revenue. Indeed, not only have state and local governments condoned such practices across the country, they have in fact perfected them in the name of revenue drive. Happily, though, the illegality of that practice has now been made official. Henceforth, anyone who collects revenue on the highways in the name of a state or local government should be made to account for such action. This official directive is in fact long overdue. For so long, motorists have suffered from various assailants robed in the garb of government officials on the highways. Now that the security challenges in the country have worsened, it has become imperative for the government to take steps to rein in the assorted illegalities on the highways. If anything, it is difficult to distinguish between state and local government officials and men of the underworld plying their nefarious activities on the highways. Therefore, more than ever, the time is ripe to put a stop to the barbaric style of revenue collection.

Ideally, states and local government councils should have adequate data about their revenue bases and deploy sophisticated means in accessing them. The act of waylaying innocent travellers passing through their territories is despicable. Through the image portrayed to the outside world via tourists and visitors, this practice has actually cast the country in poor light. The latest directive from the Federal Government through the Ministry of Transport should therefore not toe the path of the regular statement heard but not implemented. In fact, we think that the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has a lot to do in public education and mobilisation in this regard. Any state or local government official who flouts the new directive should be made to face the full wrath of the law. It will be unfortunate to allow the directive to suffer the same fate as previous government circulars that exist only on paper.