By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku, Alltimepost.com Abuja Correspondent
On the 13th day of December 2021, men and officials of the Jabi Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) carried out an inspection of vehicles plying the Jabi Airport Road.
The inspection lasted for about two hours. While it lasted, residents suffered: commercial vehicles all deserted the road and commuters trekked to their destinations under the harsh Abuja sun.
On that day, many vehicle owners were arrested. They had committed one offence or the other. Some were arrested for driving with expired driver’s licenses, while the others did not have plate numbers. Amongst those arrested were Peter Nwoje and Friday Adejoh, both dispatch riders.
They told Alltimepost.com that they were arrested because they did not put on reflective jackets as required by law. They also said that the VIO official handling their matter then fined them N15, 000.00 each.
While Nwoje managed to negotiate his fine from N15, 000.00 to N5, 000.000, Adejoh got off the hook after he paid N10, 000.00 to the VIO official at Jabi. They said they paid directly to the VIO official. Like many others who made payments for vehicle offences, they were not given receipts.
Another case was Shettim Zakariya, a youth corps member who studied in the UK. After he returned to Nigeria from his studies abroad, he said he did not realize that his number plate had ‘expired’.
The VIO let him go after he promised to come to the office to renew his number plate license. He was given a document highlighting his offence. When he eventually got to the VIO Jabi office, Shettima said he parted with N40, 000.00 VIO.
After that, the VIO issued him an all-clear dated 16th December, 2021 document. The Report cited by Alltimepost.com had no official stamp and was unreadable.
There are very many other victims. One of them who did not want to mention his name told Alltimepost.com correspondent in Abuja his experience: “I was coming from town last year, and was arrested just a day after my license expired.
“On that day as a matter of fact, I was going to have my license renewed. They made me pay a certain amount of money to a POS operator on their premises. After I paid to that person, I found out that the receipt of payment was less than the amount I paid. Not only that, they forced me to take a 3rd Party Insurance from a provider, NICON Insurance, which was not my choice.”
Alltimepost.com visited the Jabi VIO office. The premises appeared tumble-down. It has only one building like an L-shape, where several officials appear to be imputing data into a system.
Old and abandoned cars litter the scene. We saw many residents with one unresolved case or the other running after one VIO official or the other. There is a white container in the middle of the premises almost hidden from view from prying eyes, and where some kind of transactions was taking place.
Based on allegations of irregular transactions that take place at this Jabi VIO office, Alltimepost.com visited the Mabushi VIO Office. At the gate, a signpost with the inscription: “Directorate of Road Traffic Services” encourages the public not to ‘patronize touts.’
And even though the notice also publicized a website, www.fctdrtsselfserv.gov.org, to enable members of the public access services of this government establishment from their homes, touts were everywhere on the 21st December 2021, 12:52 when Alltimepost.com visited.
The touts are alleged to be agents to VIO staff, insurance companies and interested parties. We saw several thoroughfares where brisk ‘business’ flourish.
It usually begins from the young chap with ear piece in front of the VIO Mabushi office. Instead of paying at the banks, fees are paid here to phony accounts unrelated to Federal government of Nigeria accounts. After paying to these accounts, the receipt generated often does not tally with amount paid.
Other offices outside the VIO office belong to agents of insurance companies. They work closely with the VIO to get clients.
“There’s usually a long queue of persons waiting to ‘capture’ after payment. So, to push your file after ‘capture’, you must give somebody money who takes your file to the oga. The person who takes your file to the oga ‘takes’ a percentage while the oga ‘takes’ his own. I can get you somebody from the inside to help you do your own,” a tout told Alltimepost.com correspondent.
According to Alltimepost.com investigation, customers simply write their names, phone number and amount on a piece of paper. The touts collect the pieces of paper from them, collate and process them. After collation, they work quickly to encode names and phone numbers of applicants into a phone, from where they are sent to the VIO central system through a Wassap message.
Kalu Emetu is Public Relations Officer of the Abuja VIO headquarters in Mabushi. He told Alltimepost.com that “we know that 80% of our staff are involved in illegal activities, but they are often prompted by applicants who don’t want to pass through the process…what do you want me to do about this?” he asked.
Nigeria operates a treasury single account as part of an economic reform program, initiated by the Buhari administration. It facilitates a unified structure of government bank account for all government transactions.
It is a system of accounting that is part of campaign for zero-tolerance for corruption. We showed Mr. Emetu documents written in gibberish, from the Jabi VIO office, and asked why staff are collecting monies from applicants, and why they are forced to take 3rd Party insurance covers they are not interested in.
“There’s a lot of work to do sir, and we are usually in a rush to meet the needs of the applicants…do you have any proof that our staff collect monies from applicants without remitting same to the federal government?
“To get all your vehicle particulars is often a very rigorous process. Therefore, we decided to at least allow some of them operate around our premises, instead of applicants going back and forth to gather their documents,” Mr Emetu told our correspondent.
But our investigations revealed that in 2021, following several complaints that these companies within the VIO premises engaged touts to bring in customers, the VIO decided to give them a quit notice.
They invited the police and sometimes the DSS, to arrest the touts and VIO working for the insurance companies. But that did not solve the problem. An insider told Alltimepost.com that because a lot of monies change hands on that premises, the arrests turned out to be beneficial to everyone.
“They would come here, arrest many touts and agents of these insurance companies but next day, you see them around again. After they return, they continue with business as usual. The Police would swoop on them again and the next day or two, they are in business again,” the inside source said.
While at the Jabi VIO offices, Alltimepost.com met with many people who were arrested. Most declined to speak on the record, preferring to vent their anger and swear. One of those affected told Alltimepost.com that even though the law says you must have a comprehensive third party insurance cover it is not up to the VIO to force one on you.
“The VIO are issuing these insurance covers on us by force, working as touts for their favorite companies,” one of the aggrieved alleged.
Directorate of Road Traffic Services was promulgated by an Act of Parliament on 1st January, 1949, by the colonial administration. Part of its functions include effective patrols on roads and highway to carryout routine checks and enforce compliance.
Officials of the transport secretariat of the Federal Capital Development Authority declined to make any comments on these allegations of extortion and forced issuance of insurance covers to Nigerians.
Ifeanyi Oghamadu, deputy director and PRO of the transport secretariat in the FCT directed our correspondent to Mabushi to see Mr. Bodinga Wadata of the VIO office Mabushi. He was unavailable to speak with Alltimepost.com at the time of filing this report.
