Last week, the Court of Appeal upturned the judgment of the federal High Court sitting in lagos wherein the federal high court declared that the federal road safety commission has no right to impose a new number plate on Nigerians. The Court of Appeal held that the FRSC has the right to determine number plate policies and to determine the dates the new number plate regime would start. Nigerian do not want change but the fact remains that apart from the price of that new number plates, it is ideal for nigeria to have new vehicle number plates. The new number plates are designed to lift nigeria to the level of other advanced nations of the world. In most countries, when you buy a car, you must change the number plate. This is because number plates are registered in the name of the owner. The policy is that once a car is purchased either as a new car or from the former owner, the new buyer would register the car in his own name. The former plate number would be discarded and a new number given. By this, there would be a central motor registry whereby FRSC, police and anybody who wants to know, can always find out who owns which car. The importance of this is that it shall reduce the incidents of crimes of which cars are used to commit, like kidnapping and armed robbery, together with terrorism. If that policy is implemented, once a car or vehicle is used to commit a crime, the central registry can always tell you who owns the car. Once a traffic offence is committed, or a hit-and-run driver uses his car to kill a pedestrian, once there are people who saw the plate number of the car, then the culprit can always be found and arrested. When a vehicle is stolen or missing, the owner of the vehicle would promptly report the theft to the police, otherwise he would have to explain to the authorities how the vehicle ended up being used to commit an offence if the car was used to commit an offence. However, for this policy of FRSC to be fully effective, there is the need for there to be Close Circuit Tv cameras (CCTV) on our streets and highways. In some advanced countries I have visited, the presence of cctv highly aids in the reduction of crime and traffic offenses. The FRSC should closely ally with municipal govt to provide CCTV cameras on the streets so that when traffic offences are committed, those recordings can be played back and the culprits found. However, even if those CCTV cameras are non-existent here, we still need to know who owns which vehicle. The era whereby people buy cars and drive them around without proper documentation must cease if we want to leave in a crime-free environment. The other day, Dimgba Igwe of Sun Newspaper was killed by a hit-and-run driver. If there had been a form of central motor registry, maybe with the registration number, the culprit could be found. We, in Nigeria, need to accept change. The world is changing and if Nigeria does not accept the change, then we shall have ourselves to blame.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:43:47 +0000
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