From dealing with daily traffic snarls and potholes to unruly drivers in rickety vehicles with expired documents, Nigeria’s highway patrol officers have a lot on their plate.
At the same time, they have to face the risks from armed robbers who attack unsuspecting road users idling in monster traffic jams.
An increase in crime on the roads has sparked fresh debate over whether members of the Nigerian Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) should be allowed to carry firearms.
FRSC chief marshal Boboye Oyeyemi has said that about 70 operatives were either shot dead by robbers or knocked down by hit-and-run drivers in 2016.
Those deaths would have been prevented if his operatives had guns, he said.
FRSC spokesman Bisi Kazeem said officials were legally entitled to do so.
“The provision is there in the FRSC Act, but the [Nigerian] government has to approve and gazette it before it can be implemented,” Kazeem said.
Nevertheless, industry sources said an armory had been built for the agency in the capital, Abuja, should the green light be given.
Last year, the Nigerian House of Representatives passed a resolution urging the government to procure weapons for the road marshals.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 180 million people, returned to civilian rule in 1999 after decades of military rule.
Politicians having replaced generals are in charge of the country, but uniforms are still everywhere and many of those who wear them are armed.
They include the army, navy and air force; the police; customs, immigration and prison services; officers from the anti-drug agency; and the civil defense corps.
Some say that adding to the list would be a recipe for disaster — particularly for anyone dealing with Nigeria’s hot-headed and frequently frustrated motorists under the tropical sun.
Opponents say it will further militarize the country and aggravate tensions, as security forces deal with threats from Boko Haram militants or violence between herders and farmers.
There have been well-documented cases of human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings.
Recently, a police special anti-robbery squad was forced to change its name following public outrage at atrocities by its officers against civilians.
“Allowing the FRSC to bear arms is tantamount to militarizing the polity and unnecessary proliferation of arms,” security consultant Don Okereke said. “There are too many outfits carrying arms in the country such that people continue to live under constant fear. This is not healthy for the civil society.”
There would be more killing of innocent people in what the police claimed was due to “accidental discharge” if the FRSC is armed, Okereke said.
A retired FRSC commander, who asked not to be identified, agreed.
“The timing is wrong. Now that elections are approaching we should not encourage anything that can heat up the polity,” the retired commander said.
Unscrupulous politicians could pay corrupt FRSC operatives to use their guns against their opponents, he said.
Nigerians are to go to the polls on Feb. 16 to elect a new president and parliament, with state governorship and local assembly polls held two weeks afterward.
On the roads of Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city where traffic is a constant headache and tempers flare, drivers already have a lot to deal with.
They include over-zealous traffic police with sticks and spike strips to burst tires, officers from the FRSC and its local equivalent, the Lagos State Traffic Management.
Add in the so-called “area boys” or gangs who run the bus stops and depots for the battered yellow minibuses, or danfos, driving often resembles a city-wide shakedown for cash.
“Without weapons, the FRSC is already a fearsome unit,” said Olufemi Oluwaseye, a communications student who is a regular user of public transport.
“They [the FRSC] have this unique way of instilling discipline, even if temporary, into even the harshest drivers,” he said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to