Peter Okafor
The International Traffic Awareness initiative has described as unprofessional and misinformation the recent special report on Saturday” trust captioned driver’s licence:How Abuja VIO, driving schools compromise standard’.
The Group’s Publicity Director, Musa Abdullahi, expressed dismay over the report emphasising that the reporter even though at liberty to write whatever report did not do his homework well taking for instance his aligning of vio with driving schools.
“It may interest the reporter to know that all driving schools are certified, registered and supervised by the Federal Road Safety Commission and not the VIO.
This makes it difficult for one to take the report seriously. The porter the driving schools use is managed by the FRSC”, he said.
According to our intelligence reports,
it has been difficult for the VIO, to access the porter for some time which jeopardises most of their activities related to driver’s licence.
The reporter during his undercover investigation caught one Aaron, a VIO officer who was obliged to cut short the long process forgetting that the said Aaron is not a staff of the DRTS driver’s licence department charged with the responsibility of issuing a driver’s licence.
“In any organisation, there are bad eggs. As such, this is not an issue. Since the inception of the incumbent DRTS Director Dr Abdul Lateef Bello, a lot of sensitisation has been carried out to rightly educate the general public on the processes involved in the obtaining of driver’s licence.
The Head of the section Akeem Yusuf, too has been doing a lot to ensure that people do not fall prey to suspicious and corrupt characters like Aaron willing to cut corners knowing fully well that he is not a staff of the section.
“The good image of the directorate is being dented in this process. The reporter too failed to approach the superior authorities in the directorate to balance the story. The supervision of driving schools which ought to be done jointly between the FRSC and the VIO which is a state creation has for long been hijacked by the FRSC which makes them the alpha and omega.
“Our group made several attempts to report this ugly development to the national assembly but proved abortive due to corruption. How then is it now the fault of the VIO.
Recently, the Dr Lateef administration in drts setup a unit to supervise driving schools since it is a shared supervisory role between the vio and the FRSC.
“There is also one important aspect the general public does not take into cognizance is the fact that the vio signs the driver’s licence. The signature on every driver’s licence is that of the state vehicle inspection chief. We therefore urge the general public to disregard this publication even though a special report. The freedom of information era has made verification easier.
“If defence headquarters, DSS,Diplomats,top civil servants and even legislators can devote time to approach the designated and approved driver’s licence centres particularly Mabushi and undergo the processes till the end, what then stops other Nigerians from following suit”
“Only desperate people fall victims to characters like Aaron who assured the undercover reporter of quick issuance without following due process. The VIO DRTS has gotten eulogy and accolades from creme Dela creme of the society”, he said.
