Mr. Luka Ikpi is the new Oyo State Sector
Commander of the Federal Road Safety
Corps. The Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
Sociology graduate has worked in the six
geo-political zones in the country as Sec
tor Commander, after leaving the National
Archives of Nigeria in 1996. The road
safety chief, who said he could not think
of any other job outside the uniformed
services because right from the beginning
“I feel it is part of my own way of
contributing to the development of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria”, said the
FRSC was more, appealing because: “I
really love service to humanity”.
He spoke on his experience with motorists
and other road users since he assumed
duty in the state in August.
What are the common traffic offences
you have noticed?
There are many traffic offences. You see
people driving or riding overloaded
vehicles. You see okada riders carrying
three passengers making four including
the rider on a bike. In Micra cars you find
drivers carrying two or three in the front.
There was a time I apprehended some
people. This person even carried
passengers in the booth of this small
Micra. When people came out of this car,
they were almost 10 or 11. How can
people be jampacked like sardines in a
can? We face these challenges despite the
fact that we have been arresting people.
There’s never a day that we won’t arrest
10 micra drivers. And yet we discovered
that no day goes by without arresting four
or five drivers. We learnt that the more we
arrest, the more they go into the same
act. It’s indiscipline. Not knowing really
what the traffic rules and regulations are
all about. We have a lot of challenges,
especially in this Ibadan metropolis.
People are not abiding by the rules. They
don’t observe the traffic lights. They are
not maintaining what we call discipline.
We also have issue of illegal parking. Most
of them are the Micra drivers and okada
riders. They don’t mind swerving any time
into the roadside to pick passengers.
These problems are very paramount here
in the metropolis.
But it appears your officers look the
other way over the very common issue of
overloading.
We don’t. The issue there is that, a times
when they see that we are at one point,
they take other roads. We also have those
driving and phoning at the same time. So
they know it and do it deliberately. Some
even, on sighting the road safety officials
standing on the roadside, pass with speed
and we don’t pursue because in the
process, the person can go and ram into
another person and cause more harm to
other road users.
Why has the drive for the use of crash
helmet declined?
We are assuming a new dimension and
this we have already done with
ACOMORAN (Amalgamated Commercial
Motorcycle Riders Association of Nigeria)
so that we will now have a one-on-one
talk with their officials. When we meet
with their officials, they will organize a
day whereby we will now sensitize their
members at various angles and areas for
them to know the importance of safe
riding. We are not just doing this for the
purpose of generating fines or punish
people unnecessarily. It is for their own
good. You’ll find out that if you have a
crash that affects your hand or leg, it can
be amputated while you live with even
artificial one. But who is the doctor that
will give you artificial head? And once a
crash involves the head, you find out that
it is always very severe and at times, the
person involved can go insane or it can
lead to such person’s death. The head is
more fragile than any other part of the
body. It needs protection. So, we want to
carry
out crusade to most of their parks for
them to realise the importance of wearing
the crash helmet, because it is for their
own safety. We have been arresting many
riders. You can see many motorcycles
seized as a result of this neglect of
helmet. When they come to the office, the
Public Relations Officer educates them on
the need to use the crash helmet. But
after all is said and done and they don’t
comply, but, we can take another way. In
fact, when I was in Delta and people were
not complying despite the death toll, we
invited the state government and the
House of Assembly saw the need to stop
this. They enacted a law banning okada
riding in the city. So, we have the right to
advise the government if we see it as
being detrimental to the lives of the people
riding, their passengers and other road
users.
Thousands of applicants are yet to get
the Permanent Drivers License despite
concluding formalities since 2012. What
is the problem?
Let me tell members of the public that
already, there are over 10, 000 drivers
license that are lying in the Board of
Internal Revenue and people have not
gone there to claim them. Some people
don’t even have the patience of really
sitting down to sort out. Now we have
devised a means, because what has also
been giving us problem is that those
whose contacts were filled in the course
of registration as next of kin do not notify
the applicants when they receive bulk
SMS sent to tell the owner of the driver’s
licence to come for collection. We have
been sending bulk messages. So that is
why we have over 5,000 driver’s licence
lying at our office at Onireke and that of
the secretariat in Agodi and people are
not going there to pick up their driver’s
licence. I want to assure you that most of
the driver’s licences have already been
produced and they are in the Board of
Internal Revenue.
There are allegations that the processing
is fraught with fraud. What have you to
say to that?
Some people have said it, but have never
given me a statistics or concrete evidence
of how this fraud was being perpetrated.
When I was in the BCOS the other time, I
told them the driver’s license is N6, 350
and that is why it is what the Joint Task
Force has agreed upon. This force
comprises all the chairmen of Boards of
Internal Revenue of the federation. It
comprises the Federal Inland Revenue, the
police, the VIO, FRSC, the Central Bank,
and other people that take decision on the
driver’s licence. One thing we tell people is
that they shouldn’t give their money to a
tout. He will tell you bring some money to
get a driver’s licence for you. But, rest
assured that your money and the
passport you give him will get you a fake
driver’s licence. But you must go to our
driver’s licence centre where your photo
and fingerprints are captured. A
temporary driver’s licence will be printed
for you and it is expected that the original
will be ready in
the next two or three months. You as an
individual can check whether your driver’s
licence is an authentic or fake one by
logging on to the FRSC website:
www.nigeriadriverslicense.gov.org. This
is to verify or you can also drop by our
office to do so. We’ll be willing to assist
you.
What we ask people in such situation are:
who gave them the licence? Who did they
employ to do it for them? As it is, they
themselves can be prosecuted alongside
the one who gave it to them. This is
because you can be traced in our data
bank. In those days if you go to any
country, they used to write us to confirm
if the licence someone carried was
authentic or fake. Now even if you apply
for it in any part of the country, they don’t
need to write Nigeria again to verify,
because they can from there open the
FRSC website to check information about
you and once it is fake, honestly, they will
not leave you. So people need to be
educated so they don’t allow anyone to
deceive them.
What are the perennial causes of
crashes?
One of these is overspeeding. Greater per
centages of auto crashes that occur in
Nigeria are caused by overspeeding. Most
people especially during this yuletide
season, want to make a trip to Lagos and
return within one hour, so that he can
make two or three trips within a day
thinking that by doing so, they’ll get rich
quickly. So they don’t give regard to
anything that can happen on the road.
Another is tyre burst, which occurs as a
result of using “tokunbo” tyres.
Another is overloading, which makes the
vehicle unbalance. Vehicles are built in
such a way that the front carries the
engine. All this weight was deliberately
put in front to balance the vehicle. At the
moment a vehicle is overloaded, the front
is now on suspension and when such
vehicle enters a small pothole it
summersaults, because the grip of the
tyres is no longer in front again. Some
also use phones while driving and they
drive without concentration. Once you’re
using your phone while driving, you can
get a bad news and you lose
concentration and the next thing is that
you’ll ram into other people. There’s also
the use of alcohol. Before driving they’ll
want to go and drink or take marijuana,
or sniff cocaine or one thing or the other
to be sure that they don’t get tired while
driving or something like that, not
knowing it has a serious effect as time
goes on.
This is why if they are moving in the
night, they do haphazardly and they end
up in a ditch. And you’ll also find out that
everyday more cars are imported into the
country. The vehicles that are in Nigeria
since 10 years ago when compared to
what it we have today, you’ll see that
there is very much gap. Yet many people
buy vehicles today, without even going for
proper driving lessons; they only get one
or two days for their brother or sister to
teach them. They afterwards hit the road.
Unaware that they’ve not mastered the
process of driving and of course, we get
more crashes.
