24th October, 2016.
His
Excellency, President Mohammadu Buhari GCFR
President
and C-in-C of the Armed Forces of Nigeria
Aso-Rock
Villa, Abuja.
Your
Excellency,
‘FIGHTING AND EXPOSING THE MASSIVE CORRUPTION AROUND
PARTICULARLY THE ROAD TRAFFIC CONTROL SUBSECTOR’
NGO NEEDS PRESIDENTIAL EXPRESSION OF INTEREST TO THE
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, TO PASS THE TRAFFIC WARDEN SERVICE BILL; AS THE IGP/NIGERIA
POLICE USES MONETARY INDUCEMENT & CORRUPTION TO SUPRESS THE PASSAGE OF THE
BILL; TO FURTHER THEIR MASSIVE CORRUPT & ILLEGAL PERPETRATION ON THE ROAD
TRAFFIC SUBSECTOR.
With due respect and
honour to indefatigable President and Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces
of Nigeria, President Mohammadu Buhari
GCFR; The anti-corruption
Crusader.
I enthusiastically write
once again to inform Mr. President concerning Nigeria Police despicable,
lawless and recalcitrant insinuations that tend to undermine the fight against corruption and the CHANGE
MANTRA your administration has sincerely been drumming, that has rekindled
and equally re-energized some of us, your foot Soldiers with the zeal to fight
the canker worm, expose and tame corruption that is secretly perpetrated in
high places by those Your Excellency so trusted- The Nigeria Police.
2. Your Excellency,
am saying this in the light of the realities that, fighting and exposing corruption is challenging, it involves
risk-taking, courage, boldness, determination, facts and substantiative prove,
to lay claims, beyond mere allegations and, unless whistle blowers are
supported to get the culprits nailed, it may look a mere futile exercise taken
such a risk. The NGO has stood firm in her determination to expose
the persistent fraud and massive corruption involving Trillion of Naira that
has been siphoned quietly and is still on-going in the road traffic control
subsector, perpetrated by Nigeria Police and unabated. It is condoned by the
hierarchy of the Police institution; which also had remained detrimental to the
economy of the nation.
3 Your Excellency,
in getting to the root of such massive brigandage, economic sabotage and
rebellion, our initial interest had been that of fighting to liberate the
moribund Traffic Warden Service (a separate Establishment) from the fraudulent illusions
created by Nigeria Police that led to the unconscionable conscription of the
Traffic Warden Service to come under the Nigeria Police in 1975. This was done
owing particularly to Nigeria Police greed and glutinous vested interest on the
road traffic control function. It was on this mission the NGO discovered that,
the Nigeria rebellious Police is heartlessly involved in mass corruption, where
the Police quietly enrich their pockets, depriving and robbing the nation of such
unquantifiable amount of accruable revenue from the road traffic activities. Such has not placed anyone in doubt why the
Nigeria Police are always hell-bent, insisting on being part of the road
traffic subsector; not willing to relinquish or vacate the road traffic subsector
for another Agency; in-spite of the abysmal failure the Police have recorded in
the subsector and the establishment of the Traffic Warden Service, set-up
to handle the road traffic control subsector.
4. Your Excellency,
the NGO has painstakingly sponsored the Traffic
Warden Service Bill (SB.100) currently undergoing legislative process
in the National Assembly and at the verge of its eventual passage into law as
an Act of the National Assembly. This is to reposition the Traffic Warden
Service back to her statutory function on the road. The Nigeria Police have disobediently refused to either handover the
subsector to the Traffic Warden Service Establishment nor prepared to allow the
right thing to be done to correct the anomalies around the subsector, to alleviate
the horrible experience by Road Users. The NGO has in the light of that
development meticuously articulated an intellectual and innovative programme
tagged: The Traffic Warden Service Project
which ultimate goal is:-
(a) to reposition the Traffic Warden Service back
to her statutory function on the road; for the Establishment to have focus,
concentrate her energies and research on the road traffic control function, as
her primary function.
(b) to
overhaul, restructure, inject purposefulness and the scientific innovations
required in the Road Traffic Control Subsector.
(d) to curb
the huge man-hours that the nation had been losing as a result of terrible
traffic gridlocks and congestions in and around our metropolitan cities and
urban roads.
(c) to make
the road beneficiary to the Government particularly and the Road Users
generally, by officially and properly coordinating the various potential
revenue-yielding windows around the road traffic activities and appropriate
same into the Coffers of the Federal Government, for road maintenance purposes
and to boost the nation’s GDP.
(e) In the
process, create mass employment for hungry, frustrated and desperate Nigerians
through the Traffic Warden Service.
Your Excellency, what
is wrong with such workable, pragmatic and innovative programme that would
support the nation’s economy that is currently in recession and create mass
employment to the people? Why would any
right-thinking and patriotic Nigerian (whether a Policeman or a Senator) have
negative objection over this Bill, if not for corruption, greed and egoistic
tendency? It is only the Nigeria
Police that is not comfortable with the Bill to emancipation of the Traffic
Warden Service and overhaul the road traffic subsector to the collective
advantage of Nigerians and the nation.
5. Your Excellency,
as enunciated above, the Nigeria Police, driven
by maniacal greed, have been siphoning and depriving the nation of such
huge unquantifiable revenue from the road. Owing
to such secret greedy interest, massive corruption and what the Nigeria Police
are quietly realizing and shared from the subsector to themselves alone, the
Police are not willing to part with the function. These are the reasons
behind why the Police are uncomfortable with the Traffic Warden Service Bill,
as the Bill has to block the loopholes for such illegalities, economic sabotage
and expose such perpetrated massive fraud involving Nigeria Police. On getting
wind of the Bill, the Police are now around the National Assembly running
helter-skelter, using monetary inducement and bribery to flatter Senators and interfering
on the Legislators’ function, to kill the Bill. Senator Abu Ibrahim (Katsina South) and his colleagues in the Senate
Committee on Police Affairs, are unmindfully in the centre of such
greed and anti-development collaboration and campaign of deceit, supporting
Nigeria Police unilateral actions, lawlessness and misuse of power against the
nation, supporting the Police to promote inequality in the society; helping the
Nigeria Police to further intensify their illegalities and fraudulent
activities and corruption in the subsector; to further deprive the government of her due accruable revenue from
this subsector. These Senators have been bribed by the Police to kill the
all-encompassing Bill, to render the nation continuously deprived and groaning
in economic recession, while the Police further their massive corruption and
economic sabotage against the nation.
Your Excellency, the manner the shallow-minded Emissaries
of Nigeria Police hierarchy invaded the National Assembly, harassing Senators
to do their bidding on the TWS Bill, with total disregard to the rule of law
and as if bribery and corruption is legalized. Such act is despising to the
Office of Mr. President and the C-in-C; the scenario makes caricature of the
fight against corruption. It is shameful. It is a rape of democracy. It raises
doubt; if the government is really fighting corruption? Are the Nigeria
Police sacred cows or above the law? It is despising, unethical and corrupt
for Nigeria Police to summon Senators to a meeting over a Bill, if there
nothing incriminating. The Nigeria Police have taking their audacity too far.
6. Your Excellency, here
is a Bill that has a lot of potentials for national rebirth and the Change
Mantra. Nigerians cannot afford to have this Bill killed by corrupt-infested,
greedy, unpatriotic and anti-development Nigeria Police and their collaborators
in the National Assembly, for their selfish earns.
The NGO needs urgent
Presidential expression of interest communicated to the National Assembly on
this Bill, to get Bill passed, if the government is sincerely fighting
corruption. Let the corrupt-infested
and greedy Nigeria Police be probed and brought to book and overhaul. The Nigeria Police is the most greedy, corrupt
and fraudulent institution in Nigeria. Those unpatriotic and anti-people’s Senators in support of Nigeria
Police culpable fraud and greedy interest should be exposed, suspended and/or recalled
by their various home Constituencies for receiving bribe and working against a
Bill that supports the fight against corruption and equally out to create
mass employment to Nigerians generally.
7. Your Excellency, the
argument that, repositioning the Traffic Warden Service is a duplication of
function and that the FRSC and the VIO performs the same function, is out of
point, a mere baseless argument and unnecessary loopholes propounded by Nigeria
Police to elicit support to trap the Bill. It is incontrovertible that, the FRSC and the VIO don’t control traffic.
These Agencies don’t have the intra-city road traffic control as their primary
function. They have their respective mandate and terrain of duty though, on the
Road and the Vehicle. No other Agency
performs full-time intra-city road traffic control than the Traffic Warden
Service. The Warden Service
Establishment had been in existence; Wardens have been working very hard,
performing traffic control duties on the road for 43 years now, without
recognition. The Road Traffic Control Function belongs to the Traffic Warden
Service. The Nigeria Police are the
Agency that is rather creating duplication in the subsector, by refusing to
vacate the road traffic function, upon the establishment of the Traffic Warden
Service. The Police are no longer relevant in the road traffic control
subsector.
Even at when there
is an advocacy to downsize or merge some Agencies in the Public Service, the
Traffic Warden Service has to gain her deserved independence foremost and be
de-merged from Nigeria Police, before any other arrangement. There is no sense
in having Traffic Wardens continuously as parasites and functioning under the
discretion and dictatorship of another Establishment. Such is no longer
compulsory. Traffic Wardens are treated like errand boys in the Police
institution; Wardens are denied equal opportunity, not given free hands to
work; have no sense of belonging and unjustly relegated to the background in
the Public Service. The Senate should not be deceived or be carried away be
Nigeria Police dangling millions, greedy interest and unpatriotism, to lose
their sense of moral judgment. The
Police cannot afford to be in such complex functions like crime prevention, internal
security of lives and properties (that the Police are yet to improve upon
in their service delivery) and at the same instance have their eyes rapaciously
on the road traffic control that is also a wide sprawling and complex
function. Such is greediness and fraudulent. The Police have no business being in road traffic control function.
The Nigeria Police should vacate the road traffic function and focus her
energies on crime prevention and internal security. Road traffic control
function is for the Traffic Warden Service.
8. When repositioned and restructured, the Traffic
Warden Service (under the above articulated Project) shall engage 1.4m Workforce;
have the capacity to officially coordinate the road traffic activities and generate
huge revenue/income comparatively from the various road traffic activities on
daily, quarterly and annual basis into Federal Government Coffers, to support
the economy. The Traffic Warden
Service is not going to be a mere consumer Agency but a revenue yielding and
contributory Agency.
The NGO has
concluded plans to launch a N2.5Trn
Traffic Warden Service Appeal Fund/Foundation to support the successful
take-off of the Traffic Warden Service Project as soon as the National Assembly
passed the Traffic Warden Service Bill as an Act. This is to fast-track the
repositioning of the Traffic Warden Service; provide the Service with the
necessary state-of-the-art Vehicles and logistics; build befitting edifice as
Office accommodation and reorganize the Service for maximum service delivery.
The NGO needs Presidential support to get these things done.
Long live Mr.
President and C-in-C of the Armed Forces.
Long live the
Traffic Warden Service
Long live Federal
Republic of Nigeria.
JK. JOHNSONAPLA Esq.
For more info visit: http://www.vanctrawact.org.ng/