LASTMA’s new face, which FRSC should emulate

HAVE you encountered officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency lately? They appear to have turned a new leaf? Is it a make-believe or is it for real? Is it fleeting or is it what the Lord has done, which that Christian song says shall be permanent? It shall be permanent/Oh yes/It shall be permanent/What the Lord has done for me? It shall be permanent. In times past you would not find a government agency so uncouth, so rude, so unruly, so insensitive, so corrupt, so uncaring, so unkempt, so audacious, so ill-mannered, so bad tempered, so oppressive – in fact, so anything bad and negative – as LASTMA. It is like they were consciously selected, specially trained, and specifically charged to make life miserable for commuters. They had scant regard for anyone and no respect for the law they were supposed to enforce. It was like their assigned duty was to fleece the people at every turn and whosoever felt bold enough to raise an eyebrow was to be inflicted with pains that would last for a lifetime. The “T” in their acronym no longer meant “Traffic” but now stood for “Terror”. Each time I came across them on the road – the way they carried themselves as Lord of the Manor, oblivious to anyone that might see their atrocities, I concluded that these ones, too, have immunity and can do no wrong! But all that appears to have changed now!

LASTMA officials appear to have seen the light and have turned a new leaf. They have repented from their evil ways and are now born-again. Maybe I am wrong! Maybe that is not your own experience! But these days they look better dressed and well behaved. Both male and female. They greet you warmly. They flash a smile. If you are in difficulties and beckon them, they respond promptly. They put you through. In the past, it was their Devil-given opportunity to jump in your car, threaten you, call you names and begin to bargain with you on how much you must part ways with or they confiscate your car and take you to their station. They were quick at bringing out their phones and making make-believe recordings of you and your car before pretending to make calls to tow your vehicle to their station at your own expense. These days, they help and radiate joy as they greet you while you drive past.

Imagine! LASTMA officials now sir you! Good morning sir! Good morning Ma! And with a toothpaste smile that refreshes your day – especially from some of their ladies that are ravishingly beautiful. LASTMA has a lot of them manning the roads these days. Were they carefully selected? They must have learned a lesson or two from the banks where most tellers and customer service staff are pretty ladies. At first, I spurned the LASTMA new face as PR gimmicks that would now last. But it has been on now for months on end. Again, I thought it was “fine bara”. But they would not ask you for money – except you, on your own, beckoned on them to “come, take”. I hope – and pray – that this good news about LASTMA continues! Times are hard and hapless Nigerians need whatever relief they can get; not the piling of miseries upon miseries. But how am I sure that my own experience is a replica of that of other Lagosians? So, let’s hear from you!

Feedback mechanism is a barometer that helps the media to better gauge the pulse of the people. That is what we call public opinion. It also serves the important purpose of letting the government know how they fare with the people they purport to serve. Most times those in power are “imprisoned” in their cozy offices, totally cut off from reality. “Their feet no touch ground”, as they say. We do our own bit by giving them the opportunity to know what the people say or feel; leaving them to hear and act or turn a deaf ear like the proverbial dog destined to get lost in the forest that would not listen to the hunter’s whistle. Often, it is what is bad and negative about the government and its officials that is reported; their good deeds are under-reported or are deliberately swept under the carpet. This is understandable but is not good at all. In journalism parlance, the dog bites a man is not news but a man biting a dog is! Out of their incessant and persistent bad experience, many Nigerians have adopted biblical Nathaniel’s mindset of “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1: 46). Says Mark Anthony, in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The evils that men do live after them, the good is often interred with their bones…” We must begin to move away from that mindset and not let cynicism take over the public space from us.

The third reason is my wife’s encounter with some (FRSC) Federal Road Safety Commission’s officials last week in Lagos. Their refrain at the Lagos State Television (LTV) where I feature regularly is: If you see something, say something and do something! If we do, we shall soon make this country a better place for all of us. The “Japa” ill-wind will cease and, in its place, a “Japada” benevolent wind will rise from all the four corners of the world; and we would care less what a malevolent Donald Trump does in or with his America.  My wife was coming home from work when she was accosted by some FRSC officials at Apapa on account of what they called “faded number plate”, which many usually wrongly call “plate number”. She called me and I forwarded to her a recent Federal High Court judgment that says the FRSC should not accost any motorist on account of faded number plates. When she told them that, they added another “offence” of what they called “Fire Extinguisher violation”. She had recently purchased a new fire extinguisher when she was told the previous one had expired. Both were in the car but her explanations fell on deaf ears as the officers were bent on collecting “something” from her, which she witnessed them doing right, left, and centre with other motorists.

When she made efforts to record their nefarious activities, they tried to snatch her phone from her. All the same, she managed to snap the photographs of two of them –  L. U. Uka (female and the head of the team) and S. Singdep (male). They issued her a ticket and insisted they had impounded her car. My wife sent this message to me from the scene: “She wanted to snatch my phone as she observed I was going to snap her… He (the man) kept shouting on me and harassing me as I was trying to pack off the road. I was almost run over by a tipper lorry carrying sand. The first thing he said was that I was driving a car with a faded number plate. They checked everything in the car – the brake lights, trafficators, C-caution, jack, extra tyres, fire extinguisher (which were two) and I explained to them that I was told that one had expired; so I recently bought the second one but they complained that they were both bad. I told them I never used them.”

My wife, a Level 17 Lagos State Government official, is civil and courteous to a fault – a child of God, without being immodest. I told her to surrender the car to them and avoid their harassment. I immediately called two of my lawyer-friends. On second thought as a senior citizen and a doyen of the journalism profession, I got the details of the FRSC Lagos State Public Relations Officer and reported the matter to her. Her response calmed frayed nerves. Few minutes ago (Friday evening), she still told me she was on the matter. Very well; I strongly believe that the issue of so-called faded number plates should stop being a gold mine for corrupt officials, be they FRSC or others, especially in these austere times. My conviction in this regard was further reinforced by a publication in PATHFINDER NEWS of Thursday, January 23, 2025 where a cross-section of Nigerians applauded the Federal High Court judgment earlier mentioned. Mike Ochonma, Chairman of the Nigeria Auto Journalists Association (NAJA) was quoted as wondering why the FRSC should confiscate/impound cars and impose fines on motorists “for the fading of the number plates it produced”. That tallies with my own reasoning.

Mr. Forster Obi of DFCNews was also quoted as saying that since motorists were not the ones producing the number plates but “in this case it is the FRSC… it is unjustifiable for the FRSC to arrest drivers or motorists as offenders in this matter… Most people allege that those involved (in the production of the number plates) collect enough money to produce genuine and quality number plates but end up using cheap materials… They now turn round to arrest drivers when the plates fade.” His opinion, again, tallies with mine. I don’t even think the number plates in question have sufficiently faded to warrant the confiscation of my wife’s car. I can bet it that most Nigerians will condemn some FRSC officers’ high-handedness in this matter.

As I conclude, I give reasons why I chose to come this far. One is that some overzealous law enforcement officers are taking undue advantage of the conflicting court rulings on this matter to feather their corrupt nests. Time to have a final court decision on the matter is now! Two: Perhaps, this affords the government another opportunity to take a hard look at the Steve Orosanye report on rationalization of the Federal Government’s sprawling bureaucracy that trumps efficient service delivery, escalates cost of governance, and spews corruption and oppression all over the place. Three: This may be a wake-up call on the FRSC to emulate LASTMA. I suspect that it is not spirits or angels that descended from the sky to engineer the remarkable transformation I have witnessed in LASMA. The “S” in FRSC means “Safety”; it should not be Shamelessly and Scandalously reduced to Scavenging for bribes on our highways. Someone in the Commission should stand up, dust up its history and restore its faded glory (of the Wole Soyinka/Maja-Maja Days in old Oyo State), instead of running after so-called faded number plates on Lagos roads.

Scripture says in Songs of Solomon 2: 15: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.” The little foxes spoiling the vines of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration are those elements that, for selfish motives, pollute the system and poison the mind of the generality of the people against the government. In doing that, they make the yeoman’s efforts of those doing the right thing not to count – the likes of the Works Minister, David Umahi; FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike; Solid Minerals Minister, Dele Alake; Interior Minister, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo; Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo; Blue Economy Minister, Gboyega Oyetola; Tunji Bello at the FCCPC; not to talk of the heroics of the JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede; the NDLEA boss, Mohamed Buba Marwa, and the efforts of the president himself and other silent achievers working hard to make this country a better place for us all.

But we must watch it! Unable to find work and selling fruits at a roadside stand, Mohamed Bouazizi had his wares confiscated in the same manner those FRSC officers confiscated my wife’s car; frustrated and miffed by the oppression, Bouazizi set himself ablaze on 17 December, 2010 in Tunisia, igniting the Arab Spring that spread to Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries, toppling regimes and sending presidents packing. There is a limit to human endurance!

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