FRSC, VIO under fire over prolonged delay in driving licence issuance

The delay in the issuance of driver’s license by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and by extension, the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), for almost a year has attracted wide condemnation across the country. 

Prospective drivers who applied to be licenced and those seeking a renewal of their old licenses, especially in the states have complained about the tortuous process and delay in getting them done.

Most liaison offices in most of the states, especially  Lagos have heaped the blame on the headquarters of the FRSC and the VIO, in Abuja.

Regrettably, the situation has stagnated businesses and employment opportunities of the license applicants.

On a daily basis, these applicants and their relatives visit the premises of the VIO headquarters at Mabushi and FRSC headquarters at Zone 4 and 7, pleading with the officials to expedite the process, to enable them get their licenses. 

The conundrum appears to have given room for unwholesome practices, as some officials take advantage of the situation to milk unsuspecting Nigerians with the promise to fast-track the process for them. 

Peter Omang, 22, said that he applied to get a driver’s license since January this year, but has not been able to get one. His case is not different from Mr Chisom Nwoha who applied in Lagos to renew his license since December last year in Lagos, but has been driving with the temporary letter given to him by the licensing office in Ikeja, Lagos.

Omang said: “I made all the necessary payments and documentation since January, but I have not been able to get licensed. The VIO has been making excuses with the promise to call me when it is ready. 

“The delay is sickening. I need it to get a job and to apply for other things. At some point, I thought I was being scammed.

“The VIO officer who is assisting me told me that my license would be ready in three months, but this is almost eight months. I have the temporary license. But it has expired. And you know how these officers behave on the highway; they hardly listen when you try to explain.”

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Also, Cathrine Danjuma, who applied for a renewal, said she had not gotten the original driver’s license, for almost six months.

“I think we are also having a similar challenge. They will issue you a cover note or a temporary license. In fact, that is what I have been using for sometime now. I have not been able to get the original driver’s license. 

“Whatever the case is, they need to speed up the process,” she said. 

When contacted, the Spokesperson, Directorate for Road Transport Services (DRTS), Abuja, Kalu Emetu, explained that the tripatite arrangement which involved the Federal Road Safety Corps, the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) and the revenue board, was responsible for delay. 

According to him, the failure or the delay of a segment of the trio affects the entire process. 

He said the tripatite arrangement was done to ensure a central monitoring system that is devoid of fraud. 

Emetu said it was not the responsibility of the states to produce driver’s license, but the Federal Government. 

He said: “It is partly our responsibility to issue driver’s license. What Road Safety does is to harmonize it. It is like getting the contract from the state to print, for it to be uniform. 

“Then they will give to all the states. In the process of issuing it to prospective drivers, what happens is that there is a tripatite arrangement; you have the state, revenue board and the Federal Road Safety Corps. 

“Now, three of them perform different roles to get the driver’s license done. The state will test you to know if you can drive. It is the state that will also approve for you to be captured after being satisfied that you can drive. 

“When all these things are completed that is when Road Safety Corps comes in to capture and to get your data to maintain a central data bank. 

“Now, when it is done, they will print the license and send it back to the state, which Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) represents the states. Then DRTS will issue the rate to the prospective drivers. 

“Now, you cannot give what you do not have. The responsibility the FRSC is performing is that of printing it and making sure that the person’s data that are in the system, and when they do not do all these things that is when there is a problem. 

“The problem also is the FRSC had some challenges that made them not to deliver on time.

“It does not affect the renewal of driver’s license. A temporary one will be issued pending when the original one will come out.”

Also, the FRSC Acting Corps Public Education Officer, Olusegun Ogungbemide, admitted that the Corps had technical issues before the arrival of the Corps Marshall, Shehu Mohammed, which he claimed had been resolved. 

Ogungbemide, however, claimed that most prospective drivers failed to claim their license on record time. 

“We had hitches at the earlier stage before the arrival of the Corps Marshall, Shehu Mohammed. 

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“So, when he took over he made some tactical visit to some of our facilities to have on-the-ground assessment of what he inherited and to also make known to members of the public that we were having both internal and external issues that caused the delay in issuance of driver’s license.

“Ever since, we have resolved it. We gave the mandate to our facility managers to ensure that they fix it within 24 hours and which they have started.

“So, I think the major problem we have is that many people have also failed to go and claim their driver’s license at their various stations.  “I will get you the details of the number we have that have not been claimed. 

“It is not just about not having it, many people have also not gone to claim theirs. 

“When I say internal problem I am making reference to our own end here in Abuja. I am not denying that.

“The internal problem that we had has to do with some of the technical equipment that are used in preparing these items. And at the same, when he (Mohammed) came, he made sure that all those equipment are put in good condition and they are functioning perfectly. 

“External problem has to do with our technical partners who are in charge of the control system like the VIO. 

“It is a tripatite arrangement. The three of us are involved. We are not passing blame now. 

“But ever since he came in he has put machinery in place to solve the problem and we have started operating 24 hours.

“We commenced work on the release of the backlog. The hitches that you witnessed came from those who have failed to pick up their driver’s licenses from the various centres. 

“It is not as if we are having any major problem,” he said.

Across Lagos State, license applicants who spoke to Sunday Sun confirmed that they have waited for over one year, saying that licensing officers only last month released the ones applied for in May last year, claiming that the printing plant of the FRSC broke down.

FRSC, VIO under fire over prolonged delay in driving licence issuance

The Sun

Seven power players behind June 12 crisis beyond MKO, IBB

The narrative of Nigeria’s democracy is tightly woven around a protagonist, Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO), and an infamous villain, General Ibrahim Babangida, whose action birthed the reason June 12 became a special day in Nigeria’s political calendar.

While Abiola and Babangida remain the main characters in the June 12 debacle, many other Nigerians played crucial roles in the crisis that turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for the largest democracy in Africa.

Abiola is dead. Babangida is alive. But on the sides of the two men were power players who wanted their man to emerge as the winner of the political conflict that preceded and trailed the annulment of the June 12 election.

Here are the power players behind the June 12 debacle.

Alhaja Kudirat Abiola

Ahead of the Saturday, June 12 presidential election, Kudirat Abiola, the wife of the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), MKO Abiola, played a significant role in her husband’s campaign.

Aside from the goodwill Abiola enjoyed among Nigerians at the time, especially in the South, Kudirat, who grew up in Zaria, endeared the voting populace in the North to her husband by delivering her campaign speeches in the Hausa language.

When her husband’s election was annulled and was subsequently incarcerated, she took up the leadership of the struggle for democracy and Abiola’s release.

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Despite the tyranny General Sani Abacha unleashed on pro-democracy activists across the country, Kudirat refused to go into exile like others. She fearlessly stayed back to fight for her husband’s release from detention, sadly, she did not live to see it through.

She was assassinated on June 4, 1996, at the age of 45.

Pa Alfred Rewane

Alfred Rewane was a Nigerian businessman who committed his money to the struggle for democracy. He was the chief financier of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) a pro-democracy group established in May 1994 to call for the recognition of Abiola as the winner of the June 12 election.

He reportedly spent millions of naira on media campaigns to ensure Abiola’s June 12 mandate was restored. Like Kudirat, he did not live to see the democracy he fought for.

He paid the supreme price on October 6, 1995, when suspected agents of the Abacha regime assassinated him at his Ikeja residence.

Prof Humphrey Nwosu

Humphrey Nwosu was the chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) which conducted the 1993 election.

According to reports, Nwosu courageously resisted efforts by self-serving groups to scuttle the election.

Having supervised an exercise that was largely deemed free and fair, he proceeded to announce the results of the election when Babangida ordered him to stop. The military general subsequently annulled the election.

Arthur Nzeribe

One of the groups set up to stop the election scheduled for June 12 was the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) led by Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe.

The association allegedly funded by Babangida was one of the many groups that launched campaigns for his prolonged stay in office.

In its bid to scuttle the election, Nzeribe’s group filed a suit at an Abuja High Court over alleged electoral corruption by Abiola at the SDP primaries in Jos in March 1993.

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After the plan to stop the election failed, the ABN, while the counting of the election results was ongoing, ran to court again to obtain an order to stop the further release of the results and Justice Dahiru Saleh granted the order on the ground that the election should not have held in the first place.

Having released the results of 14 out of 30 states, all of which were won by Abiola, the electoral umpire suspended the announcement, followed by a military pronouncement that heralded the death of HOPE ‘93.

Justice Dahir Saleh

On the negative side of the narrative of the June 12 power play was Justice Dahiru Saleh, the former Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

It is on record that his order which forced Nwosu to suspend the announcement of the adjudged free and fair election ever recorded in Nigeria was granted in a hurry without hearing the electoral umpire.

In his 2016 interview with The Interview magazine, the retired justice accepted the blame for the annulment of the June 12 election, saying Babangida had no hand in his controversial decision.

He said Nigerians may be blaming Babangida for the June 12 debacle because he was Abiola’s friend, but the former Head of State did not use him or his court to scuttle the election.

General Sani Abacha

Nigeria’s ruthless dictator, the late Sani Abacha, was the biggest beneficiary of the June 12 crisis after the political heat forced Babangida to step aside.

With Babangida out of power, Nigerians looked forward to a transition to democracy with the hope that Abiola’s mandate would be restored by the interim government of Ernest Shonekan, installed by Babangida.

But Abacha, who was Shonekan’s Chief of Defence Staff, had a different plan. Three months into his government, Abacha overthrew him and declared himself Head of State and Commander-in-Chief.

Despite the promise to set Nigeria back on a democratic path with a plan to set up a constitutional conference that would lead to the recognition of political parties, Abacha refused to return the country to democracy.

He played god, jailed Abiola, and hunted down pro-democracy advocates. After five years of ruthless rule, he expired ignominiously.

NADECO

Pa Michael Adekunle Ajasin

Formed in May 1994, almost a year after the annulment of the June 12 election, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) was established by members of several pro-democracy and civil society groups.

The coalition’s main goal was to ensure the military government of General Sani Abacha stepped down for Abiola’s mandate to be restored.

In their struggle for the mandate, the coalition, led by Michael Adekunle Ajasin, the Governor of Ondo State from 1979 to 1983, expended its resources to bring Abacha’s junta to an end.

In retaliation, the Head of State brutally went after them. Some of them were arrested and jailed. Some went into exile while their main financier, Pa Alfred Rewane was assassinated.

Seven power players behind June 12 crisis beyond MKO, IBB

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