The essence of justified criticisms is to make one stronger and adjust in some doings.
The incumbent Director of DRTS, Dr Abdul Lateef Bello, on assumption of office detected some wrong ways of addressing and discharging some of the functions of the directorate to the general public commencing with issuance of vehicle number plates.
His first step was putting it online in order to ease the difficulty faced in getting number plates. Today, it has become easier to pay and collect vehicle number plates hitherto difficult. The second aspect was the establishment of a unit to train driving school instructors and also supervise them in order to give the general public the best. An assistant director was assigned to oversee the affairs of the unit for efficiency.
The recent Daily Trust Weekend report was well appreciated by the management going by how what has been earlier detected but being gradually tackled internally was exposed by one of the respected media.
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The fact in this matter is that corruption cannot be fought by only one organisation. It is a common practice in many revenue-generating organisations like the Customs, VIO, FRSC and FIRS for corrupt staff to sabotage the integrity of chief executives which therefore explains why the clear involvement of a DRTS staff in the cutting of corners to issue driver’s licence should not be a surprise.
We commend the work of Daily Trust. I think the report went a long way to further throw challenge to higher authorities. We must, therefore, take safety seriously, hence my clarion call on the restructuring of the process of driving school supervision which also falls in the purview of DRTS.
The driving school instructors of Nigeria made up of reputable members headed by its president, Umar Musa, are known for living up to standards, reasons why they also promised to investigate the allegations.
Salihu Dantata Mahmud is a security and public affairs analyst
