By FELIX OBOAGWINA
Recently, I ran into a roadblock mounted by
Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) of Lagos State on Liasu Road in Alimosho
Local Government Area. Their presence gave me no qualms for (as I supposed) I
had all the necessary papers –Driver’s Licence, Certificate of Insurance, Proof
of Ownership Certificate, including the controversial MOT supposed to give the
vehicle a clean bill of health. I drove an unbranded official car, a Toyota
Corona, with the papers made out in the name of my boss, a reputable
politician and frontline professional, Mr. Jimi Agbaje. Anyway, the team
stopped me, ignored the PRESS sticker on the windscreen indicating that I was a
Journalist (and most unlikely to break the law) and ushered me off the road.
Clearly, these two points soured one female officer
–that I was a Press man and I worked for an opposition political party in the
state. “Risikatu” (as I later learnt was her name) took my papers and paced up
and down, inspecting not my vehicle, as VIOs were supposed to do, but the
papers. She and the rest of the team did none of the things VIOs traditionally
did: Check vehicle headlights and indicator lights, rev the engine for
excessive smoking and so on. Instead, Risikatu brashly ordered me out of the
vehicle. I stepped out. She flipped through the papers some more.
Moments flew by; finally, Risi thrust the papers under
my nose and told me, apparently triumphantly, that I carried a “forged” Proof
of Ownership Certificate (of course only the photocopy was attached, plus the
receipt, their originals were kept in my files at home) and that my vehicle was
“hereby impounded.” This was 2008 and I had just entered into the lion’s den of
VIO and LASTMA in Alimosho, Lagos.
How on earth could she judge the papers as forged,
without any independent confirmation other than her bias and her gut feeling?
All my arguments only flowed into a leaking basket, that neither my profession
nor the calibre of man who owned the car could indulge in forging
documentation. This short, round lady accused, prosecuted, judged and sentenced
me on the spot. Instantly, she wrote out a fine ticket for N5,000 and told me
to deposit that amount at the FCMB Branch at Okota, about 4 kilometres away in
Isolo Local Government, although there was a branch within a kilometre in this
same local government where I was apprehended. Risi then directed one of her
subordinates to board the vehicle and escort me to the Alimosho Council
compound.
This effectively aborted my programme for the day,
including my plan to see a church member admitted into the General Hospital at
Igando in Alimosho and paying a sympathy visit to a relation hit by multiple deaths.
On the way, I asked the junior VIO officer how I could secure genuine papers
since Risi’s excuse for reining me in was for flaunting forged vehicle
particulars. Demola himself could not say and went on to say that his own
father, who had served in the VIO for 30 years before retiring, had always
regarded the acquisition of genuine papers as the most damning thing an officer
could involve in.
Unknown to me, my ordeal would be a journey of
exposure. As directed, I paid the fine at FCMB and brought both teller and
electronic scratch card to LASTMA/VIO office at Ejigbo for “downloading.” The
VIO officer on the computer demanded N200 before doing the job. I paid. No
receipt. Next, I must submit photocopies of the receipt, teller and fine
ticket. Another officer, to whom I would submit this document, demanded N100. I
paid. No receipt.
As I trudged from one corruption point to another, I
could not help but notice the signs of despair in the environment. All over the
compound, impounded commercial and private vehicles, of all shades, shapes and
sizes, languished. Many were new arrivals; some were old, judging by their
position inside the small compound and from the gate. All of them had been
captured by LASTMA and VIO operatives. In this same place a few weeks before,
CAC’s Pastor Alade had been harassed to an early grave by LASTMA operatives.
Frustration oozed from the faces of victims, while officers played God. I
witnessed as one officer busied himself with a motor technician negotiating to
buy some parts that would be pilfered off one of the many abandoned vehicles in
that auto graveyard. Their transaction appeared to be routine. Of course,
demurrage was being charged these vehicles at N500 per day. Undoubtedly, some
owners had calculated the fine imposed (sometimes up to N250,000) plus the
demurrage accumulated plus the illegal charges and decided it was cheaper to
let the government keep the vehicle.
After all this, I still spent over two hours
gallivanting in the premises as the official to issue the “Gate Pass” that I
needed to retrieve my car was nowhere around. When he finally resurfaced, he
had a Herculean task securing the “Gate Pass” for me even though I had to cough
out another N500.
I reached Alimosho council compound late in the
evening. There, another surprise awaited me. The security man insisted I pay
another unreceipted N500 before allowing the vulcaniser to inflate the tyres,
two of which had been deflated in my absence. The vulcaniser charged N200 per
tyre (four times the N50 it would normally cost on the streets). By this time,
I was too pissed off by the rottenness being dispensed at the VIO/LASTMA setup
in Ejigbo that I just wanted to end that day’s nightmare –at any cost.
To summarise, the illegal payments I made that day at
VIO/LASTMA in Ejigbo and Ikotun came to N1,300 and included: N200 to
“download,” N100 for recording via photocopy, N500 for pass, N500 for exit –not
counting the wasted day, nor the N5,000 I paid into the bank as official fine.
LASTMA and VIO officials who took interest in my case
would later tell me that Risikatu had no justification for her actions. One
advised me to detach and get rid of the Proof of Ownership receipt that I
carried around, it was neither a vehicle particular nor a requirement; it was an
overkill that could raise suspicion.
My agent who did the documentation later insisted that
he had processed genuine documents for me, with the requisite payments made. He
said I had fallen victim to the petty politics and muscle-flexing between Lagos
State traffic agencies and the Federal Road Safety Commission over which of
them should issue vehicle particulars to motorists in the state. What I had was
an FG-issued document. Two elephants fight and the underdogs suffer. Simply
put, Risikatu, the VIO officer, had punished me for carrying a Federal-issued
document.
FELIX OBOAGWINA, A JOURNALIST, SENT THIS PIECE FROM
LAGOS
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