Owing to the fraudulent or dubious attributes that accompany the use of tinted glasses, the Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Act regulates the degree to which vehicle windows can be tinted, especially the front windows.
These limits are in place to enable the Police and other security agents identify the driver and passengers of the vehicle in question, as well as allow motorists to see through the windows of other vehicles in order to spot hazards that otherwise could not be noticed. Similar regulation or restriction is also accorded to the use of siren.
Furthermore, customized or personalized number plate, which creates a unique identity of any vehicle it is applied on, is another sensitive gadget indiscriminately used by automobile owners in Nigeria.
In essence, a customized registration number plate, which is really much easier to memorize, conceals how long the automobile has been in existence contrary to a general number plate that discloses the age of the vehicle that bears it.
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Summarily, a personalized number plate, which its use is equally controlled by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), is widely used for three main purposes, namely: creation of uniqueness, easy memorization as well as for concealment of the automobile age, as the case may be.
However, in some quarters like the entertainment industry, most individuals use it to showcase to their fans or the public in general how influential they are, thereby ridiculing the prime essence of the device.
Owing to this lingering abuse as stated above, the apt authorities had in various times banned or warned decisively on the continued use of these sensitive gadgets by unauthorized Nigerians.
It’s appalling to observe that despite the incessant severe warnings, most Nigerians such as the politicos and what have you, still violate the law on a daily basis with impunity, thereby disabusing the members of the public of the popular notion that ‘no one is greater than the law’.
It’s more worrisome to realize that these persons received an unofficial or illegal authorization to make use of the devices from the top personnel or employees of the concerned law enforcement agencies such as the FRSC.
Such preferential treatment invariably received by influential Nigerians from the above mentioned saboteurs, in the name of ‘immunity’, really calls for a public outcry as well as a more stiff measure towards its eradication.
Against this backdrop, any member of the FRSC alongside other relevant bodies caught in the act of sabotage or any form of criminality ought to be outrightly dismissed and thereafter duly prosecuted no matter whose ox is gored. In the same spirit, any unauthorized citizen regardless of his/her status found wanting, is also meant to face the wrath of the law.
Inter alia, there’s a compelling need to review most of the laws or Acts biding the use of sensitive vehicular devices in Nigeria to include siren, tinted glass and customized number plate, with a view to making amends where need be.
The proposed review needs to be done headlong without further ado considering the societal implications of the aforesaid uncalled lifestyle unabated displayed by various Nigerians who think they are beyond the law of the land that is invariably reckoned to be a respecter of nobody.
More so, the various military cum paramilitary organizations in the country ought to be extremely careful whenever they are recruiting new members into their respective confraternities with a view to ensuring no person of any questionable character benefits from the exercise as long as it lasts.
They must be conscious of the fact that the membership of such bodies isn’t meant for everybody or all Nigerians. Unarguably, the ongoing alarming pace of sabotage witnessed in several quarters in Nigeria is mainly attributable to harbouring of fraudsters, albeit ignorantly, by various sensitive societies or corporate bodies across the country.
The President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration that seems to possess a high-integrity profile against corrupt practices is expected to act very fast toward ending this alarming rate of heresy, before we’ll wake one morning only to realize that the FRSC and its likes have been taken over by a group of ‘bloody’ civilians.