Hard Time Awaits Corrupt FRSC Officers

The Federal Road Safety
Commission (FRSC) has expressed its determination to flush out corrupt officers.
The FRSC Sector Commander in Oyo State, Mr Godwin Ogagaoghene, told newsmen in Ibadan recently that the existence of some bad eggs would not deter the commission in tackling corruption.
“We do not believe that we are angels because we have one or two officers not complying with the rules of the organisation.
“We may still have a few of our officers extorting money from motorists, but we are doing everything to curb this problem by punishing the erring officers,” he said.
He said the commission had put in place four different levels of surveillance teams to check the activities of officers on patrol.
“We have the National Surveillance Team followed by the Zonal Sector Command and Unit Surveillance Teams.
“The surveillance teams operate at their different levels by conducting random checks on officers on the road for items that may be implicating,” he said.
Ogagaoghene, however, advised motorists to desist from offering money to officers when apprehended.
He urged motorists to check for the staff number and name of any officer requesting for money and to report such to the command.
“We will take up the matter immediately,” he said.
The FRSC boss, who gave an assurance that such allegation would be investigated, further said:
“We have cases where traffic offenders turn around to accuse our patrol teams of extortion, when indeed, they had earlier molested our officers.
Speaking on the rising number of markets on federal highways, Onolememen said the ministry, in collaboration with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), had proposed a measure of enforcement to tackle the issue.
He identified lack of enforcement as main factor responsible for the rights of way abuses in the country.
‘’Only recently, we had the national council on works in Ilorin and one of the key issues we discussed was this right of way abuses on our highways and market on the road is one of the abuses of rights of way in our country.
‘’This is a menace and during the meeting, we tasked the FRSC that have the responsibility for enforcing behaviour on federal roads across the country to enhance road user education and also enhance enforcement.’’