Boboye and his road safety officers

I had taken Mr Boboye Olayemi Oyeyemi the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps as an effective leader for two reasons. One, my friend is his associate and has told me a few things about him. This friend is a very credible person so I extrapolated that he must be credible too. Two, what I read about him in the media appears to be coherent and so far he has avoided any scandal – that takes a good deal of wisdom.

But after what happened to me on Tuesday the first day of December 2020, at 10 am in Abuja at Jabi junction, I’m not so sure.

But first, the background.

My wife told me that she wouldn’t be driving to the office because her vehicle papers had expired. So she gave them to a colleague in office to help her renew them. In the meantime, I volunteered to take her to the office.

While on our way, at the traffic light branching from Obafemi Awolowo Way to Asuquo Okun road that will take us to the Jabi High Court where she works, the oncoming vehicles refused to give way even though we had been green-lighted. “If you don’t move, they wouldn’t stop coming,” my wife counselled.

So I drove and when they saw me coming, they allowed me to pass. I dropped her off at the office and I sat in the car to do my work, mindful of my next meeting. When it was a few minutes to 10, I drove off following the same road that brought us.

Everything went smoothly until the traffic lights at the intersection of Zenith Bank and the Jabi Motor Park. When I got to the light, the green light was at four seconds remaining. I figured I had time. So I drove on, but a taxi driver in their characteristic “beautiful driving,” moved in front of my car, blocking me. I was already in the middle of the road. But he couldn’t move because he was going to the left and their light was still red.  This behaviour naturally annoyed me, but I remained calm knowing that there were Road Safety officials there to call him to order. Instead, I saw a road safety official on a motorcycle in front of me flagging me to stop. I did.

So I greeted the bike man, a vest covered his name so I didn’t get his name, but he had a Nike swoosh tribal mark on his face. He beckoned to his colleague whose name tag read Karma or something similar. “Light signal,” the bike official said to Karma informing him of my offence. Karma asked for my driver’s license. I gave it to him.

“You have to follow us to Zone 7. But your license will remain with our boss in the car over there.”

“Why?” I asked him.

“You did not obey the traffic light,” he said.

“No. That is not exactly what happened,” I tried to explain, but they wouldn’t listen. So I came down from the car and went to the vehicle in which the Oga was sitting, perhaps he would listen. But in the presence of their Oga too, they didn’t allow me to talk.

Then I began to think that it was a shakedown. They might have started collecting for Christmas. And giving a bribe to a public official is something I have never done. I would rather jump through all hoops designed to elicit corruption than yield. I’m a public official myself and do not accept bribes.

By this time, I was already losing my patience. So I left my license with them and drove off.

While reflecting on the incident with my wife, we both agreed that this is how Nigeria punishes the law-abiding citizens and reward the lawbreakers. If not, how would you let go the person who committed an infraction and then blame the victim?

I’ve many faults but everyone knows that disobeying traffic rules is not one of them.

For example, I have my own speed limit. My family members and drivers know that I don’t allow a speed beyond 100 kilometres per hour even though the national limit is faster.

And I’ve collected phones from my bosses in the past when they were engaged in distracted driving by touching their phones while driving.

Luckily for me, I have a good example of my Governor to follow who stops at traffic lights even in Minna his own state capital. I recall one incident in 2015 when we travelled to Kaduna. The security agents in the convoy were openly reckless. I repeatedly told the driver driving us not to copy their example. My colleague who rode with us told me that I should allow them because convoy cars are allowed such recklessness and I told him not if I can help it.

When we arrived Kaduna, I went straight to the chief detail to the governor and told him that the way his boys behaved on the road was unacceptable.

“Many people would think the governor asked them to drive that way,” I told him, “ which means they are damaging his image and I have to protect that reputation. Besides, the road belongs to the people, so we shouldn’t shoot them off it.”

Later that evening when we were breaking our fast with the governor at the dining room, he suddenly said: “ those boys were reckless on the road today!”

“Thank you, Sir,” I said, “that’s exactly what I told them.”

I painted this picture of my perception and experience of safe driving to illustrate to Mr Boboye the kind of driver I am and to tell him that his boys were wrong and that if they were looking for egunje for Christmas, they certainly met the wrong person.

So I’m requesting from him to ask his boys to return my driver’s license if not, he hasn’t heard the last of this.

After all, there is much our road safety officials can do seeing how unsafe our roads have become. But it is difficult to see them on the highways these days. They rather stay in the towns to swoop on the easy pickings. But even in the cities, they are not protecting us. For example, two days after the incident, during our editorial board meeting at Daily Trust, our chairman, Malam Mahmud Jega told us that the car that drove in front of him nearly choked him because of the fumes coming out of it. “Those vehicles should be taken off the road,” Jega said.

Like I said earlier, Mr Boboye may not know about all this, therefore, I bring this to his notice and request his intervention.