By Saheed Ibrahim
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The level of corruption in the country has eaten very deep into many sectors (if not every) in the country and the road safety agency is not left out of the list. I have plied Akure-Ibadan express road more than fifty times and most times I am on the road, I cannot but feel sad when I see officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) exchanging passengers lives for mere two hundred naira wrapped in manifest or vehicle particulars.

The Nigerian police force has been severally criticised for mounting roadblocks and extorting fifty naira from commercial motorists. The recent outcry from the public has led to the order of the Inspector General of Police to dismantle every roadblock in the country; little do we now that the road safety agents earn more than the Nigerian police while on the roads in discharge of their duties.

It is shameful and a thing of national embarrassment for the commission set up to ensure that drivers are qualified and licenced to drive on the roads and also ensure that vehicles on the roads are in good condition in order to ensure the safety of lives of the road users are aiding and abetting recklessness by commercial drivers.

Unlike the Nigeria police officers who overtly collect fifty naira from commercial motorists, the officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps are covert in their own operation. The FRSC officers flank down commercial vehicles, the driver puts two hundred naira either in the passengers manifest or vehicle particulars, steps down from the vehicle and hand the manifest or particulars to the FRSC officer who removes the money and returns the papers to him.

It becomes irrelevant to the officers if the driver has taken alcohol, if his vehicle tyres are in bad condition, if there is a fire extinguisher or if the vehicle is in good condition. For how long are we going to allow this life-wasting operation of the FRSC officers to go on? As it seems, the focus is usually on the Nigerian police officers but no one seems to check the excesses of the officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps.

I almost lost my life, alongside other passengers, on August 17, 2018. I boarded a commercial vehicle from Ibadan to Akure. Between Ife and Ilesha, the vehicle was flanked down by FRSC officials and the driver did as usual. The vehicle was not checked, neither was the driver assessed. Before we got to Erin-Ijesha, one of the vehicles back tyres burst. The vehicle almost skidded away from the road into the dungeon beside it. It would have been another disastrous story in the newspaper.

We all alighted and tried to help the old-driver to fix the spare tyre. Lo and behold, the spare tyre was in worse condition than the burst one. It was around 6pm at night: so, many of us who had extra cash on them boarded another bus while we waited for the driver to come back from where he went to fix the tyre. To cut the story short, we left the place 7:45 pm. We would have lost our lives to accident or to armed robbers on that fateful day.

This trend is a usual occurrence – if not anywhere in the country – on Akure-Ibadan express way. It is tragic for an agency established to create a safe motoring environment in Nigeria to act in sharp contrast to its purpose of establishment. How many lives have these officers endangered in a bid to collect two hundred naira from commercial drivers? Do the lives of many Nigerians on the road not worth more than two hundred naira wrapped in papers?

Saheed B. Ibrahim is a Masters student at the University of Ibadan and a volunteer/freelancer at Hope Newspaper