I most humbly appreciate the House of Representatives for making effort in amending the FRSC (Establishment) Act, 2007 to give effect to the provision of section 19
BEING A MEMORANDUM IN RESPECT OF A BILL TO AMEND THE FEDERAL ROAD SAFETY COMMISSION ACT, LAWS OF THE FEDERATION OF NIGERIA, 2007 AND FOR RELATED MATTERS, 2024
I most humbly appreciate the House of Representatives for making effort in amending the FRSC (Establishment) Act, 2007 to give effect to the provision of section 19 of the Act accordingly; and I also thank the House for giving me this great opportunity to make a presentation in respect of the Bill.
The amendment of section 19 of the Act to allow members of the Corps who are exposed to high risk in the enforcement of the provisions of the Act to have same powers, authorities and privileges including power to bear arms given to the Nigeria Police, Nigerian Correctional Service, Nigerian Immigration Service and Nigerian Customs Service and to establish a Road Safety Special Armed Squad to carry out such operations would be laudable achievement in securing and protecting personnel handling high risk functions. If this was in place, it could have averted an incidence where I almost lost my life protecting the integrity of the Vehicle Number Plate System.
Mr. Chairman and Honourable Members of the House Committee on FRSC, I stand before you this morning to confirm that threats to lives and property of personnel and property of the FRSC is real. I am a victim and just lucky to be alive. Yes, I suffered a vicious attack based on my determination to protect the integrity of the vehicle number plates in Lagos when I was the Sector Commander in the State in 2002. I was spared of my life by God’s miraculous intervention.
My case as one of the few lucky survivors of several attacks on our staff is a relevant case. I took headlong, the task of ridding the vehicle number plates implementation of touts and other illegal profiteers. The number plates were always not available as some people always mopped up the plates, made them available to touts and the scarcity of the plates jacked up the costs by over 500 percent. The motoring public was being fleeced by these criminals and the public complaints were very loud. I was uncomfortable and very determined to ensure sanity. Efforts to bring me into the illegal activities were resisted
I discussed the issue with the then Governor of Lagos, incidentally our current President, His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on how to sanitize the vehicle number plate system and block revenue leakages, make the plates available to vehicle owners at official rates and enhance road safety. His Excellency approved the recommendations and the costs of the plates crashed from over 25k per pair of plates to the official price of 5k. The plates were also readily available.
The actions must have angered the criminals as they ransacked my office, carted away some documents and splashed blood that looked like fettish act in the office, obviously to scare me. How did they get easy access to the office of the Sector Commander? Obviously, non adequate protection. They subsequently moved against me and wanted to assassinate me. Around 8pm on 13th July, 2002, four assassins stormed my residence, easily overpowered the unarmed guards, moved in and pumped bullets into my abdomen. Right in view of my pregnant wife and other family members in the house, I was almost assassinated. My surgery took over 9 hours to remove the bullets and sewn me up. I was hospitalized for months and my survival was miraculous. That was the Lagos Sector Commander, who was upholding public interests to restore the sanity of the system and preserve sanctity of human lives that was an easy prey for criminals. Sure, that attack would have been waived off were the guards armed. If the FRSC (Establishment) Act, empowering the Corps to bear arms and enjoy other privileges accorded to Police Officers and men in the same regards had been activated, that attack would have been averted. Incidentally, I am one of the four pioneer officers trained in the United States of America in 1992 as firearms instructors.
I even believe the time to arm officials of the FRSC is coming a bit late. I still have the scars that I will carry to my grave. I still feel the pains.
Some other victims were not that lucky. They are no more leaving behind widows, widowers, children with truncated ambitions, everlasting pains of family members and others.
I served as Commanding Officer in Oyo, Lagos, Kogi, Rivers, Sokoto (supervising Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara), Jos (in charge of Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa states) and also Commandant of the FRSC Academy in Udi, in Enugu State. I had seen my men attacked, patrol men shot, vehicles and other properties destroyed with our men unable to do anything to prevent the attacks. I had witnessed our men dying in preventable attacks. I had visited the injured in the hospitals. I had been to the homes of the victims to console the bereaved families.As the Head of Policy, Research and Statistics Department, I had collated monthly statistics of our fallen heroes. All these loses because the nation has saddled us vital responsibilities without adequate protection.
Mr Chairman and Honourable Members, I am appealing to you all to please endorse this Bill and ensure the passage of same into law. We should put an end to loss of FRSC personnel and wanton destructions of government properties. Officers and men are ready to do the job, let us protect them in carrying out the assignments. Some will argue on what is referred to as “accidental discharge”; that is, “mistakenly” killing the innocents. My experience as a United States of America and Nigeria trained Firearms Instructor on the Federal Government sponsorship as far back as 1992, has taught me that such wrong handling of weapons can be mitigated with proper and adequate training.
Some may argue on proliferation of arms. Are we talking of illegal arms or arms in the hands of state actors, those legally empowered to use the arm in safely discharging their duties? How many parents here, will pray to have their children going on rescue mission of crash victims in areas of high insecurity. Yes, some will argue that they should go with armed teams from other security agencies. How practicable it is for every patrol or rescue/ambulance team nationwide to be accompanied by armed guards from other agencies. Will they always be ready and timely to prevent deaths during the “Golden Hour”, the first hour of road crashes when over 90 percent of deaths in road crashes occur? Do they even have enough personnel to provide the Corps with such teams when they are also battling with serious issues of insecurity? The answer is of course No as I believe they also need more personnel and arms to effectively discharge their duties.
We all need to support this Bill and provide arm guards to safeguard the lives of the Corps’ personnel and property in the course of carrying out their duties.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Dr. Kayode Olagunju, mni,
Deputy Corps Marshal (Rtd)
Original title: ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON MY LIFE AS LAGOS COMMANDER WOULD HAVE BEEN AVERTED IF THE FRSC HAD BEEN ARMED BY KAYODE OLAGUNJU, PhD, mni,
11th November, 2024
