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From Nwimo Chukwudike, Awka
A lawyer, Mr Ndubuisi Agu, has dragged the Anambra State Traffic Management Agency (ATMA), its newly appointed Managing Director, Mr Emeka Okonkwo, popularly known as Konti, and one Mr Emmanuel Iruogu before the Anambra State High Court sitting in Awka, for collecting a sum of N50,000 from him following alleged traffic offences.
Agu, in a suit dated September 30, 2022, filed by his lawyer, ST Omeh, alleged that some ATMA officials impounded his Toyota Camry Car with Registration Number: AAA337CA, on Saturday, September 17, 2022, while he was driving out of a petrol station at Aroma junction, accusing him of committing “route violation” and “route obstruction” offence.
The plaintiff sought answers to seven questions, including what he termed the legal effect of the construction, interpretation and application of the provisions of Section 1(1)(3), 6(6), 36(1) (2) (a) & (b), (3) (4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), Sections 10 and 11 of the Anambra State Traffic Management Agency Law, 2011 (as amended) or other regulations the defendants relied on to impound his vehicle and imposed a fine of N50,000 on him without a trial.
The plaintiff, who backed his originating summons with exhibits such as pictures of payments he made and undertaken he signed after paying the fines before his car was released to him, added the names of some colleagues that witnessed the incident, even as he lamented that the act forced him and his colleague not to attend a meeting they previously scheduled with a client.
He sought 13 reliefs from the court, which included a declaration that the provisions of Sections 1(1) (3), 6(6), 36(1) (2) (a) & (b), (3) (4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), Sections 10 and 11 of the Anambra State Traffic Management Agency Law 2011 (as amended), did not allow the defendants to impose any fine on the plaintiff as punishment or penalty for alleged traffic offences without affording him a fair hearing before a court or tribunal of competent jurisdiction.
Others were a declaration that no regulation or law empowered defendants to legally try, convict, sentence and impose any fine or penalty on the plaintiff for alleged traffic offences; and a declaration that no law empowered the defendants to designate any expressway, road, street and lanes in the State as “One way” and “thereby create a fictitious offence called “one-way driving” or “route violation” or “road obstruction” an opportunity to be heard.
