Nifemi Babasanmi
Comrade Salihu Dantata Mahmud,a known security analyst and secretary general of the Arewa youths for peace and security has condemned a bill currently undergoing processes In the house of representatives to give the authority to carry arms to a percentage of the federal road safety corps mostly called arms squad as it exists In the Paramilitary.
Salihu implored members of the reps to nay it as it violates concept of traffic enforcement and control all over the world. “Take for instance the police traffic wardens that have existed before the creation of FRSC, they don’t bear arms so why should the FRSC established as a result of the influence of the Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka who borrowed the initiative from an American road safety club and sold the idea to then Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who established it through a decree in 1988 to among other things reduce carnages on our roads.”
: Overtime, the FRSC through acts deviated from its original mandate and secretly became an unofficial revenue generating traffic agency placed under the office of the secretary to the government of the federation through tasking of payment of fines for use of phones while driving,violation of use of seat belt,faded number plates,expired drivers licence,vehicle particulars,non possession of fire extinguisher,c caution and other vehicle road worthy possessions which ordinarily were residual functions of road traffic and vehicle inspection officers.
“If the FRSC is justifying danger on highways how? They can seek for police protection or that of civil defence that has arms squad. We have to act in tandem with international best practices. If the bill is allowed to scale through,it is capable of ridiculing us as a country where anything goes. There has been cases of humiliation,manhandling and maltreatment of offenders by some FRSC officers due to lacking temper management which goes to say when they are granted the authority to bear arms even though a few percentage as arms squad,they can pull in anger and drop in disgrace.”
