By Sani Abdullahi
When the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) was established 36 years ago in response to the pervasive menace of road traffic crashes in the country at the time, the founding fathers who were well known human rights activists and advocates of civility in law enforcement never saw any need to make provisions for use of arms by FRSC personnel in the enabling laws. Instead, they preferred a civil approach in the enforcement of traffic rules and regulations by which they believed that drivers would be civil enough to be persuaded by the efficacy of education, which the marshals would give them and their convictions about the rightness of the marshals’ actions would make them to willingly obey traffic rules and regulations without resistance.
That civil approach they preferred was devoid of any coercive instruments in traffic management and safety administration and, although novel in the history of law enforcement in Nigeria, it was nevertheless given a try by the then military government, which bought into the ideas as canvassed by the founding fathers, championed by the founding chairman of the FRSC board, Nobel laurent, Professor Wole Soyinka. That was why the original FRSC enabling laws, known as Decree 45 of 1988, made no provisions for either the use of firearms by the FRSC or gave thought to any defensive mechanisms that marshals could rely upon whenever faced with adverse situations by drivers and members of the public.
Relying on the use of education and public enlightenment as instruments of authority and potent tools in attitudinal change, therefore, continued to remain the guiding principle in managing drivers and public reactions to the corps’ operational activities over the years. It, however, did not take long after the commencement of full enforcement of the laws by the corps in 1989 following the full year of public enlightenment in 1988 when it became obvious that drivers were not going to exhibit civil traits in their reactions to the demands for enforcement as earlier thought. Thus, cases of knockdowns of patrolmen, violent attacks, destruction of their patrol vehicles and damage to buildings as well as use of various tactics to intimidate, harass and ridicule the personnel operating with civil convictions became daily occurrences, with recorded cases of loss of lives as patrol activities intensified nationwide.
As the situation degenerated across the country, with threats of further violence on the personnel becoming obvious, the Federal Military Government was left with no opinion but to change its mind against the civil approach five years later when it approved firearms for the corps in the amendment to the original Decree 45 in 1992. Accordingly, provisions for arms for the corps were made in the 1992 amendment decree, otherwise referred to as Decree 35 of 1992.
In giving impetus to the new approach, Major General Haldu Anthony Hananiya, who took over the mantle of leadership of the FRSC from the pioneer Corps Marshal, Dr. Olu Agunloye, in 1994, did not hide his preference for the military face of the corps. For instance, he introduced some semblances of military orientation, including the wearing of uniform by all categories of staff, sending some senior officers as well as marshals on arms training at some military institutions, while making parade and other traditional practices associated with paramilitary organizations fully entrenched in the system.
Meanwhile, the corps’ uniform that used to be round collars to symbolize civility was changed to the normal collar type commonly worn by every paramilitary agency in the country even as the Eagle was superimposed on the Owl which was standing conspicuously on the corps’ logo to give a more distinct outlook for the FRSC.
It must, however, be noted that despite all the arrangements made by General Hananiya throughout his first tenure, and even when he returned in his second sojourn, arms were actually never introduced into the operational strategies of the corps as at 2007 when he finally left, against the extant provisions in the FRSC laws. The status quo on the provision of arms for the corps remained till the emergence of civil democratic rule in 1999 when the military decrees were abrogated and re-enacted by the National Assembly with the FRSC enabling laws becoming the Establishment Act 2007. Even then, the provisions for arms for the corps were retained under Section 19 of the act.
Evidently, from the 1992 amendment decree, which first introduced arms bearing to the FRSC, to the current 2007 Establishment Act, and despite the relevant training and reorientation programmes organized by the corps under successive corps marshals in the face of incivility to the personnel as well as damage caused to the facilities of the organization by various antagonists, the corps has continued to operate without recourse to arms or plans on how to react defensively to violence by drivers and members of the public. According to result of survey covering 2016, which was recently released, FRSC personnel have been enduring various provocations from drivers and misguided members of the public.
These, according to the survey, included 1,266 violent attacks, 132 assault cases, 35 cases of abduction, 21 armed attacks and 82 mob attacks. Others were 107 knockdowns, 23 cases of harassment, 20 kidnappings and 46 killings even as the personnel continued to bear the brunt. This is against the fact that law enforcement anywhere in the world involves use of some coercive instruments, bearing in mind that majority of the offenders, even in the most advanced and civilized societies hardly submit themselves willingly all the times to law enforcement officers, unless there is evident fear of sanctions and threats of consequences of their act of violence against the enforcers.
Moreover, no state will sit back to allow sustained acts of violence, intimidation and humiliation to its men in uniform, knowing that uniform, by its social values represents the presence of the state wherever the personnel appear on them. Consequently, personnel on uniform must always be respected and protected by the citizenry.
It was with that spirit in mind that provisions to arm the FRSC personnel against the organization’s original civil outlook were made 32 years ago as reflected in the abrogated Decrees and the FRSC Establishment Act 2007 which is being amended by the National Assembly with proposals for the setting up of special armed squads for the Corps.
In reality, the sustained aggression, violence and unprovoked intimidation by the civil populace against the personnel of the FRSC carrying out their legitimate duties of creating safer road environment is most condemnable and uncivilized. That’s why the consensus among some security analysts in the country is that, the once glamorized civility of the FRSC which made its personnel so vulnerable to various attacks and incapable of defending themselves is no longer tenable under the present circumstances, and must therefore, give way to a new orientation that can enhance the Corps’ capacity to carryout its statutory responsibilities most effectively without threats of attack.
This, they said, is the panacea for guaranteeing greater safety and security on the nation’s highways.
• Abdullahi is the Deputy Corps Commander in charge of Strategy in the Corps Marshal’s office.