Lagos State Traffic Law: Motorists Lament Ordeal In The Hands Of LASTMA

Lukmon Akintola

Lagos

A Lagos State devoid of traffic is one of the priorities of the government of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

To achieve this, the Governor has been putting structures in place with the increase of work hours of officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), and a 100-percent increment in their allowance.

While this might be a good development for the men of LASTMA, the need to justify their new wages has led to a widespread clampdown on motorists.

Once known to be a menace on Lagos roads, LASTMA officials were subdued by erstwhile Governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode.

In an interactive session with officials of the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO), Kick Against Indiscipline (KIA), and LASTMA, Ambode said: “I don’t want officers that will torture my citizens, they may be offenders but don’t torture them. Don’t jump into their cars to enforce arrest. This is where you have to be creative and use technology in the implementation of the law. For now, no harassment.”

The above statement became the modus operandi with which LASTMA operated while Ambode’s tenure lasted. With the warning, traffic enforcement officials became demystified and were put in check.

However, the inauguration of Governor Sanwo-Olu and the 2018 Lagos Traffic Law has now turned them into something else.

Today, with the flimsiest of excuses, a motorist can be arrested by any LASTMA official without recourse for explaining the offence committed.

A LASTMA official sitting in the shotgun of a car or a commercial bus while the driver begs or argues about the reasons for his or her arrest is now commonplace in Lagos State.

This overbearing attitude has now seen most LASTMA officials being tagged overzealous, leading to an outcry from both corporate, private and commercial vehicle owners.

Defenceless in the wake of this onslaught, frustration has seen members of the public defending themselves from unfriendly traffic enforcement officials who appear to be backed by government.

Barely a month ago, staff of Seven-Up Bottling Company and officers of LASTMA were involved in a free for all fight leading to the injury of some people.

According to the Chairman of the Lagos Task Force, Chief Superintendent of Police, Olayinka Egbeyemi, the officers of the traffic agency were attacked by employees of the bottling company while trying to tow a truck causing traffic gridlock.

However, staffs of Seven Up have maintained that what transpired on that fateful day was a matter of tempers flaring on both sides.

In a chat with Saturday INDEPENDENT, a staff of the company who pleaded anonymity revealed that the whole development got out of hand when the LASTMA officials became overbearing and started insulting his colleagues. He agreed that often times, the tail of their truck sticks out, but it is not always that it causes traffic.

There are however those who believe that the prosecution of the 13 staff of the bottling company by the task force is a case of the government using its resources to defend its agency without recourse for what really led to the fight. If found guilty, the 13 men being prosecuted are likely to spend at least a year in jail.

There is indeed a consensus among motorist that LASTMA officials have returned to their old ways of being a thorn in their flesh.

A commercial bus driver, who said our correspondent could call him Daniel, narrated his ordeal in the hands of the men of the traffic management authority. Daniel, who shuttles between Obalende and Ikeja revealed how LASTMA officers located on the route have now turned thin gods.

“They can arrest you for any reason they like. If you go to Iyana Oworo, Estate Bus stop, and even Toll Gate you will understand what I am talking about. You will find LASTMA officers numbering almost 15 at Iyana Oworo. They have an office there, but their job is not to decongest traffic. They look out for whom to arrest. Can you imagine, I was stopped and told that I had committed an offence a month ago, they just opened a book and showed me my plate number and said that I should come down from my bus because I had committed an offence,” he told our correspondent.

Asked how the issue was resolved, Daniel revealed that he had to ‘settle’. According to him, resisting arrest or fighting with officials would amount to more problems for him, as LASTMA now charge innocent drivers to court for the least provocation. They are backed by the new Lagos Traffic Law. Indeed, the fear of LASTMA is now the beginning of wisdom in Lagos State.

Daniel’s claims were confirmed when our correspondent visited Iyana Oworo.  Alighting from a commercial bus, he was greeted with a mild drama between a driver and a handful of LASTMA officers who sought to arrest him.

Resisting arrest, the driver, while soliloquising could be heard asking if he was working for LASTMA officials. According to him, he had just paid five thousand Naira to LASTMA officials in Jakande Bus stop in Lekki, Lagos for an offence they could not tell him when he committed. He expressed disbelieve that another group in the traffic outfit wanted to arrest him again within an interval of 35 minutes from the first incident.

The obviously angry driver urged the LASTMA official who arrested him to tell him his offence, as he refused to step out of his vehicle as ordered by the officer. This, however, didn’t deter another officer from deflating his tires.

Placated by the top echelon of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), the LASTMA officer, who arrested the driver revealed his offence. According to him, the driver had committed an offence last week, hence his arrest. But what really was the offence? He said last week while driving into the Iyana Oworo Bus stop, the driver had parked at the entrance of the bus stop which is against the law, adding that had he obeyed his order, things would have been different.

Under a rain of curses from the passengers that had disembarked from the bus, a plain clothed LASTMA official, standing some distance away nodded to the arresting officer to excuse himself.

There have been other cases of highhandedness by LASTMA officials.

Three weeks ago, our correspondent ran into a man arguing with a LASTMA official inside a gold coloured Highlander Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) at Iyana Oworo. Moving closer, the official could be heard telling the driver that he had contravened the law by dropping off his brother in a spot designated for commercial buses. Efforts by the driver to explain that he had just been stopped by a policeman didn’t yield any positive result. It took the intervention of the officer of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), who had arrested the man to make a case for him before he was set free.

On the same day, several officers stormed the Iyana Oworo motor park taking over about 10 commercial buses parked at a section of the park.  According to the team leader of that operation, they had earlier warned the operators of the park to desist from parking at that particular position as it often obstructs the flow of traffic. The buses were however released after the park chairman assured the officials that no bus would be parked there henceforth.  

On Saturday, June 22, a plain clothed LASTMA official slapped a commercial bus driver in Maryland. His offence was that he veered off the main road in a bid to overtake a driver in front of him.

Narrating his ordeal, the driver said he was ordered to pull out of the main lane by another LASTMA official, hence what he did. Opting not to pursue the case any further, the driver said that he would be victimised afterward if he chose to argue any further, as Maryland is his regular route. Commuters in the bus, who tried to intervene, were rudely told to mind their business, as the official who assaulted the driver said he would not be taught his job.

A septuagenarian retired civil servant, who spoke in anonymity with our correspondent said this may not be the LASTMA that Sanwo-Olu can hope to achieve his dream Lagos with, as his directive to be respectful and courteous when arresting offenders has been thrown to the wind.

A few men of the agency have also been arrested for bribery irrespective of the governor’s admonition that Lagosians expect a corrupt free LASTMA that will not go around collecting bribe from motorists.

But how did LASTMA officials become this powerful, how did they become demigods, will the ultimate goal of a traffic-free Lagos State which Governor Sanwo-Olu hopes to achieve be gotten with these cream and wine boys on a rampage, how did we get into this mess?

David Olaoni, a banker with one of the new generation banks who resides in the Ajah axis of Lagos State put the blame on Governor Sanwo-Olu’s doorstep.

According to him, Sanwo-Olu’s policies on traffic have been very harsh on the masses.

“Though we know that traffic offenders should be punished, the policy that he has brought and the power he has given the traffic officers is just too much. They are abusing it and are taking advantage of it. They are even creating their own laws, laws that are not in the book. We are human and can make mistakes, but to LASTMA, there is nothing like mistakes. We have heard stories of how LASTMA officials were involved in contributions of outrageous sums if it happened in the past, it is back now. Who will pay the price, is it not those that they arrest both legally and illegally? He asked?

Oni’s position on the new traffic law in Lagos State and the rot in LASTMA is supported by commercial drivers who believe that the increment in the allowance of the traffic official and the statement by Governor Sanwo-Olu while addressing senior officers that “to whom much is given, much is expected” has gotten into their head.

There are however those who have absolved Governor Sanwo-Olu of any wrongdoing as far as the law is concerned. “You don’t blame a man for a law that he didn’t make,” Wale Ajibola an Information Technology consultant said. According to him, the traffic law had been in existence. It is the enforcement that has just started. So, you can’t blame Governor Sanwo-Olu, he is merely executing the law for the betterment of Lagos State,” Ajibola said.

But what does the 2018 Lagos State Traffic Law really says? What fine does it recommend? According to the government, the original law passed by the State House of Assembly in 2012, was designed to protect law abiding road users, while violators face the consequences of their actions.

In the 2012 law, fines for offences ranged from N5, 000 to N50, 000, jail terms and forfeiture of vehicles. However, the new regime is something else.

A one-way driving offence could see a driver fined for as much as N200, 000. Also, all the violations that hitherto had no monetary penalties now attract fines of between N20, 000 to N90, 000.

For instance, failure to use seat belt, unclosed doors or standing on the doorway while in motion, all attract N20, 000 each. Parking on the highway, obstruction of traffic, picking or dropping passengers on illegal bus stop attracts a N50, 000 fine.

Explaining the hike in the fines for the new law, a LASTMA officer who spoke anonymously said: “when we started enforcing the 2012 law, we thought that a fine of N50, 000 was a big deal, but we soon realised that it was a slap on the wrist. People were paying it. With N200, 000 fine or the risk of your car being impounded, motorists now think twice.”

Olawale Musa, the General Manager of LASTMA, however, seems to have a unique way of justifying the new law and its fines.

According to him, the law has always been in existence, but it is just been more emphasised.

A statement signed by Musa weeks back in the wake of criticisms trailing the new law allayed the fears of motorists over its enforcement.

Musa assured members of the public, especially motorists not to be apprehensive over the fines being circulated on social media platforms as it was not a punitive measure but part of the law and measures that have been put in place to restore sanity to roads in the State.

He added that the 2018 traffic law was an improvement of the 2012 law with objectives of addressing the void and inadequacies noticed with a view to improving traffic control and management, safeguarding motorists’ rights, improving road safety, eliminate impunity and disorderliness on roads, and end traffic officers’ overzealousness and arbitrariness while on duty.

Victims of his boys have however said that the statement is hard to believe. Asides that, the fact that offences such as reversing on the highway, driving on kerbs and parking on walkways now attract N50, 000 penalty, while driving on BRT designated lanes attracts a fine of N70, 000 makes it hard to the simplicity which Musa is selling.

Other offences that attract huge fines include dropping passengers on laybys. Any driver caught committing such an offence get slammed with a N90, 000 fine. And for every night, a seized vehicle spends in the custody of LASTMA, a N1, 000 fine is paid.

A one-way offender has the option of appearing in court or appeal for out-of-court settlement and submission to fine.

If the driver opts for a fine, he or she would also sign an undertaken, pleading guilty to other lesser traffic offences, but not one-way. The total bill for the offences eventually totals within the range of about N200, 000. Indeed, it will be hard to maintain that the 2018 law is not punitive.

The option of the mobile court is not any better. It goes with a court bond of between N100, 000 to N150, 000 initial fine payable by a violator who is still on trial. With the bond paid, the offender’s vehicle is released but must keep appearing in court until the case is closed.

Already, there are recorded cases of offenders being ordered to forfeit their vehicles to the Lagos State government.

Musa’s position that the new traffic law is democratised simply because cases have to be proven, determined and punished according to a law court has been torn into shreds by motorists who have concluded that the trio of LASTMA, the law and court are owned by the state government.

Bearing this in mind, what are the chances of the person being prosecuted?

With a very poor record of officials who have been punished for being corrupt over time, Musa’s plea to members of the public to report cases of harassment and extortion to the agency for investigation and appropriate action has also been described as mere lip service.

Known as a model state where other state governments and neighbouring countries pick ideas, this law is not one which is likely to be emulated.