Mr SIMON UTEBOR writes about the moving tales of defenceless traffic officials molested or killed on duty by motorists or members of the public.
It was about 5am on December 15, 2016 and Mr Bakare Olatunji, a traffic officer with the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, was already dressed in his well-starched uniform heading for work.
He earlier promised his wife, Ajoke, and children to be home once he ended his schedule for the day. Olatunji’s superiors called him to quicken his steps as traffic was already building at his station base, Apapa, Lagos, noted for unending gridlock.
Without much ado, Olatunji, a zonal Head of LASTMA, was already at the base with his team to control traffic. He, however, didn’t know that death was lurking around that day.
Tanker drivers, who parked indiscriminately on both sides of the road in the axis, caused traffic snarls. There was chaos in the area. In the confusion, an unnamed driver assistant (motor boy) who struggled to escape from the chaotic scene was hit by a truck. The motor boy’s death sparked uproar thus marking the start of problems for Olatunji.
Angry mob, including some of the tanker drivers, claimed that the motor boy’s demise was caused by Olatunji and his team.
The mob angrily descended on him like a cockroach among famished fowls. He was pronounced guilty as charged in the mob’s court. They pummelled him into a coma and bolted away. He was later rushed to a hospital by Good Samaritans. He did not survive the attack.
Almost two years after his demise, his family members have yet to get over his loss. Olatunji’s widow said she and her three children had been finding it hard to cope since the death of their breadwinner.
She also said the incident came to her and other family members as a shock, especially as he went to work only for them to receive the news that he was killed on duty.
The widow, who has yet to remarry, said, “It takes the grace of God to cope in a situation like this. It came to a point that I realised that no matter how long I cry, it cannot bring back my husband. So, by the grace of God, I have prepared myself to be strong for my children.
“I must admit that it has not been easy. If I tell you that it is easy, I am lying. But I bless God who has been our hope.”
Ajoke also stated that after the incident, she called her three children, aged three to 11 years, and told them how their father was killed on duty by angry mob.
She noted, “It is not that the children have forgotten about their father. I sat them down and talked to them. I made them understand what happened to him.”
The widow also commended Governor Akinwumi Ambode for offering her employment after her husband’s death, saying that she was employed as a clerical officer in the Head of Service office.
She added that apart from the job offer, the state government also offered financial support to family.
Also, Olatunji’s sister, Rukayat Olajuwon, said Olatunji’s death had dealt a devastating blow to her and the entire family.
She said their mother was the worst hit because the deceased bonded so well with their mother that people mistook them for brother and sister.
Olajuwon said, “December 15, this year, will make it two years that my brother died. Whenever we remember the incident, we pray for him that God should repose his soul and keep him in heaven.”
Valley of death
Another LASTMA official, Mr Olanrewaju Yusuf, was luckier as he did not lose his life when a commercial driver attacked him. For him, April 26, 2018, remains fresh in his memory.
Yusuf told newsmen that the driver, identified only as Kenneth, stabbed him with a smashed bottle while attempting to evade arrest when he picked passengers at an undesignated bus stop at the Palmgrove area of Lagos.
He explained that the driver aimed the bottle at his face but he used his hand to stop it from reaching his face, adding that it was in the process that his palm was shattered.
The incident landed Yusuf at an emergency ward of the Lagos State Emergency Hospital at Toll Gate where he spent some months before he could get better.
Our correspondent noticed that Yusuf could no longer hold any object firmly with the injured right hand decorated with scars from the stitches.
Yusuf recalled, “The driver stopped to pick passengers at an illegal bus stop. We flagged him down. Instead of showing remorse for what he did, he started shouting like a mad man.
“I entered the vehicle to take him to the station. He ordered me to come down from his vehicle, but I refused. He said since I refused to come down, I wouldn’t live to tell the story. He brought out a bottle, broke it and stabbed me with it. He wanted to stab my face but I used my right hand to parry it and the broken bottle landed on my palm. After hitting me, he and his conductor ran away and abandoned the vehicle.
“We took the vehicle to the station. Three weeks after, he was arrested and charged to court. He admitted his wrongdoing and said it was the devil that pushed him into that.”
Last week, in the Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State, a suspected FSARS operative shot dead a LASTMA officer, Adeyemo Rotimi, who asked him to obey traffic rules.
Besides, an operative of the Federal Road Safety Corps, identified only as Ade, said he escaped death by a whisker in the hands of a reckless commercial driver.
Ade explained that on the day, the driver and his conductor threatened to push him into the Lagos lagoon on the Third Mainland Bridge for daring to enter their vehicle in a bid to arrest them for violating traffic laws.
Ade, who said he was eventually pushed out of their moving vehicle, lamented that he spent over seven months in and out of the hospital due to the varying degrees of injury he suffered after the attack.
The road safety officer stated, “The driver and his conductor were brutal. They were picking passengers on the Third Mainland Bridge. We apprehended them and I entered their vehicle for onward movement to our station.
“Their first act of brutality towards me was that they held my neck and said they would suffocate me to death. After that, they left me ruffled. They said they would teach me the lesson nobody had taught me before. While still on the Third Mainland Bridge, they wanted to push me into the lagoon. I started shouting and begging them to spare my life. Suddenly, they slowed down and pushed me out of the vehicle. They retorted, ‘stupid man, that serves you right’.”
In 2017, the FRSC Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, said their officers were attacked in some states including Abia, Jigawa and Oyo states. He recalled an incident when a motorist sped off with a female FRSC officer inside his vehicle in Abuja and the shooting of two officers by security details of the Abia State House of Assembly Speaker along the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway.
Sharing his experience, another LASTMA officer, who gave his name only as Yemi, said he was attacked by some miscreants in the Owode Elede area of Ikorodu in Lagos.
He added that trouble started when a mob attacked them for trying to apprehend a law-breaking motorist plying the Bus Rapid corridor designated only for BRT buses.
Yemi, who said he was a member of traffic officers that monitored BRT lanes, noted that when they saw the motorist, they ordered him to stop.
He stated, “The man stopped but the area boys, who knew him, came to the scene of the incident, and said we could not arrest him. But we told them that the motorist violated traffic law but they insisted that he could not be arrested and that the motorist was a prominent person in the neighbourhood.
“As we were arguing over the issue, the motorist zoomed off. In the process of rushing out of the scene, he collided with another bus and an accident occurred. One of the occupants of the vehicle went to mobilise area boys, telling them that it was LASTMA officials that caused the accident.
“As soon as the area boys arrived in the place, they descended on four of us. Two managed to escape and two of us were left at their mercy. They pounced on us, beat us mercilessly and tore our uniforms. I had internal bleeding and was rushed to the hospital. They would have killed the two of us that day if not for one of our senior officers that saw what was happening and stopped to save us.”
He added that some of their attackers even tried to pull them out of their senior officer’s vehicle that day but they didn’t succeed until he drove off.
“I later discovered that in the process of attacking us, I lost my driving licence, ATM card and my ID card,” he said.
Disturbing statistics
In December 2016, Oyeyemi said 70 officers of the commission were killed by reckless drivers that year.
He added that the figure was lower compared to the 160 deaths recorded in 2015. Also at an event in October 2018, the FRSC boss stated that in the last 18 months, the corps lost 74 officers.
Besides, the data supplied by the corps’ Public Education Officer, FRSC, Mr Bisi Kazeem, to newsmen showed that from 2015 to date, a total of 163 personnel of the corps (officers and marshals) sustained varying degrees of injury from assault, mob action and knockdowns arising from violent attacks.
Kazeem explained that out of the affected officers, four were seriously injured, one had a spinal cord injury; one had his leg amputated, and another with a fractured arm.
He said within the period under review, a total of eight patrol vehicles and several valuables were damaged in commands across the federation with an impounded vehicle forcefully taken away from the base.
Kazeem added, “In 2018 61 cases of assault, knockdowns, mob action and theft were recorded across 53 formations of the corps. Out of the personnel affected in the incidents, 16 officers and 38 marshals were injured, while two were killed.
“Specifically, of the 61 violent cases against the personnel that were recorded in 2018, 20 were knockdowns, two were kidnappings, three were abductions while two were theft cases.
“Moreover, 11 cases of assault were recorded, while 15 were mob actions and one was riot killing, among others.”
He noted that Rivers and Lagos states topped the chart of violent cases against FRSC officers with three cases each, while Niger State, Operation Cobra, FCT and others had two cases per formation.
He said 11 of the recorded cases were being heard in various courts across the country while 20 were settled out of court, using alternative dispute resolution mechanism.
Kazeem stated, “But two of the drivers involved in the violent acts were sentenced by high courts in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi, and Lokoja, Kogi State, respectively. In the case of Birnin Kebbi, where the driver hit and killed the personnel, he was sentenced to death by the court, while the one that knocked down one of the personnel in Kogi State bagged prison terms.”
In Ogun State, officials of the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, like other traffic officers, often find themselves in the harm’s way while on duty.
The Public Relations Officer, TRACE, Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, confirmed this when he said some of their officers had been attacked and killed on duty.
“Seven casualties were recorded this year. Some were killed while others suffered severe injuries and permanent disabilities,” he said.
‘Some traffic officers deserve attacks’
A motorist, who gave his name only as Nduka, believed that some road officers were attacked on duty because they exhibited wickedness and only interested in taking bribes.
He stated that many mischievous traffic officers were always happy to see people violate the law in order to fleece them.
Nduka said, “There was a day some traffic officers created artificial gridlock to enable them to catch erring drivers. Before we knew what was happening, they had arrested many drivers and booked them for as much as N50,000.
“How do you expect such a person to behave next time when he comes across traffic officers? Such a person, no doubt, will want to evade arrest. These are some of the reasons we have the kind of situation we are experiencing.”
Another commercial driver, who identified himself only as Jones, explained that attacks on traffic officers would continue until they stopped turning commercial drivers into cash cow.
He said commercial bus drivers coughed up a lot of money as bribes, noting that such development usually triggered anger between traffic officers and drivers.
Jones stated, “Whether your papers are correct, the traffic officers will always find reasons to stop you. In most cases, they delay you unnecessarily until you speak their language, which is to part with some money before they let you go.
“There was an occasion when my vehicle was stopped. They demanded my vehicle particulars. I brought everything and gave to them. One of them looked at me and said, ‘Are you a novice? Don’t you know that there are other particulars? Ask some of your colleagues in case you don’t know what to do. Let me ask you again: what is your number for today? Are you not aware that people are given numbers and that whenever they say their numbers, they are let go without further delays?’
“I will advise traffic officers to show some empathy towards motorists. They are paid with taxpayers’ money and they should stop treating us as stupid persons.”
Frustration, drug use responsible for attacks — Psychologist
A psychologist at the University of Lagos, Prof. Oni Fagbohungbe, linked the extreme behaviour of mob or motorists towards traffic officers to frustration and drug abuse.
The don explained that behaviour was dichotomous, saying if the assertion was projected further, every profession had its hazards.
He stated, “There is a theory in Psychology called ‘Frustration Aggression Theory’. Everybody has a goal, everybody has a need and for you to fulfil your needs, you have to go towards the goal where the need is available.
“Therefore, all these people that are attacking, abducting and killing road safety officers have their own goal, where their need is available. Where does frustration come in? When you are moving towards your goal and then obstacle comes in-between to frustrate you, whether it is real or imagined, when you are in trouble, survival instinct will prod you to want to overcome that obstacle. So, in an attempt to overcome the obstacle, there are two things you can do: either you direct the aggression against yourself or you direct the aggression against the obstacle.
“For example, imagine a driver, who carries contraband goods in his vehicle and then he sees road safety officer in front; the next thing that will trigger his action is survival instinct. How does he escape from these people? That will instigate a behaviour that will make him escape them. So, in the process, he either brushes them aside or knocks them down.”
He believed society also used unverifiable variables to assess people, noting that people usually based their assessment on perception.
He added, “For instance, if a young man is riding a sporty car, people do not want to know the source of that car. They now rate you along what they see you with. So, to these road safety people, the perception is that they are very rich because people see every agency of government in Nigeria as where people make money because every year, they make a budget and the budget is not utilised. Rather, it goes into pockets. They see them as people of means, that when they kidnap them, they will be able to pay. And so, some will see them as a ready source for their needs; they have money, they will pay, they do not want to die so that they can continue to stay on the road and extort money from innocent commuters.
“Another aspect is that our youths are derailing through the consumption of drugs. One thing that the drug does to people is that it alters their physiology and once that is done, one is prone to take only action that is defined by one and that makes one to ignore the laws of society.”
On his part, a public affairs commentator, Mr Buchi Ejiogu, said the level of frustration in the land was unimaginable and many people were only waiting for the slightest trigger to vent their anger.
He added, “With the annoying and sometime unreasonable attitude of some of these traffic officials who don’t hide their intentions of extorting money from motorists, it becomes very easy for confrontations to turn ugly.
“Unfortunately, it has assumed a situation where both parties are looking for an escape route. I do not seek to offer explanations to justify any form of assault on traffic officials. As someone who drives on the roads in this country, I know that our traffic officials need to understand basic human psychology.”
He urged traffic officers to show empathy especially when drivers were having problems with their vehicles on the road and not only to arrest offenders and collect bribes from them.
Nigeria’s traffic laws obsolete — Lawyer
A lawyer, Somina Johnbull, said attacks, abductions and killing of traffic officers in the country would persist until existing obsolete traffic laws were reviewed.
Johnbull, who is the Secretary, Nigeria Bar Association, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, advocated urgent amendment to the traffic laws to enable the country to catch up with current trend.
He said, “Amendment becomes imperative because traffic offences and the prescribed punishment seem to be like a slap on the wrist, which is why people can afford to breach traffic laws with impunity.
“In developed countries, the cases of offences that border on the usage of the road are taken seriously. But in Nigeria, even when you cross the red light or speeding, the laws are not enforced. My take on this pathetic state of affairs is that we must pursue enforcement and have an amendment that deals with immediate prosecution and punishment of traffic offenders.
“To get the situation right, these uniformed personnel, who flout traffic laws, should be used as scapegoats. When that is done, coupled with strong traffic laws, the problems of traffic enforcement would be reduced considerably.’’
In this article:
It was about 5am on December 15, 2016 and Mr Bakare Olatunji, a traffic officer with the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, was already dressed in his well-starched uniform heading for work.
He earlier promised his wife, Ajoke, and children to be home once he ended his schedule for the day. Olatunji’s superiors called him to quicken his steps as traffic was already building at his station base, Apapa, Lagos, noted for unending gridlock.
Without much ado, Olatunji, a zonal Head of LASTMA, was already at the base with his team to control traffic. He, however, didn’t know that death was lurking around that day.
Tanker drivers, who parked indiscriminately on both sides of the road in the axis, caused traffic snarls. There was chaos in the area. In the confusion, an unnamed driver assistant (motor boy) who struggled to escape from the chaotic scene was hit by a truck. The motor boy’s death sparked uproar thus marking the start of problems for Olatunji.
Angry mob, including some of the tanker drivers, claimed that the motor boy’s demise was caused by Olatunji and his team.
The mob angrily descended on him like a cockroach among famished fowls. He was pronounced guilty as charged in the mob’s court. They pummelled him into a coma and bolted away. He was later rushed to a hospital by Good Samaritans. He did not survive the attack.
Almost two years after his demise, his family members have yet to get over his loss. Olatunji’s widow said she and her three children had been finding it hard to cope since the death of their breadwinner.
She also said the incident came to her and other family members as a shock, especially as he went to work only for them to receive the news that he was killed on duty.
The widow, who has yet to remarry, said, “It takes the grace of God to cope in a situation like this. It came to a point that I realised that no matter how long I cry, it cannot bring back my husband. So, by the grace of God, I have prepared myself to be strong for my children.
“I must admit that it has not been easy. If I tell you that it is easy, I am lying. But I bless God who has been our hope.”
Ajoke also stated that after the incident, she called her three children, aged three to 11 years, and told them how their father was killed on duty by angry mob.
She noted, “It is not that the children have forgotten about their father. I sat them down and talked to them. I made them understand what happened to him.”
The widow also commended Governor Akinwumi Ambode for offering her employment after her husband’s death, saying that she was employed as a clerical officer in the Head of Service office.
She added that apart from the job offer, the state government also offered financial support to family.
Also, Olatunji’s sister, Rukayat Olajuwon, said Olatunji’s death had dealt a devastating blow to her and the entire family.
She said their mother was the worst hit because the deceased bonded so well with their mother that people mistook them for brother and sister.
Olajuwon said, “December 15, this year, will make it two years that my brother died. Whenever we remember the incident, we pray for him that God should repose his soul and keep him in heaven.”
Valley of death
Another LASTMA official, Mr Olanrewaju Yusuf, was luckier as he did not lose his life when a commercial driver attacked him. For him, April 26, 2018, remains fresh in his memory.
Yusuf told newsmen that the driver, identified only as Kenneth, stabbed him with a smashed bottle while attempting to evade arrest when he picked passengers at an undesignated bus stop at the Palmgrove area of Lagos.
He explained that the driver aimed the bottle at his face but he used his hand to stop it from reaching his face, adding that it was in the process that his palm was shattered.
The incident landed Yusuf at an emergency ward of the Lagos State Emergency Hospital at Toll Gate where he spent some months before he could get better.
Our correspondent noticed that Yusuf could no longer hold any object firmly with the injured right hand decorated with scars from the stitches.
Yusuf recalled, “The driver stopped to pick passengers at an illegal bus stop. We flagged him down. Instead of showing remorse for what he did, he started shouting like a mad man.
“I entered the vehicle to take him to the station. He ordered me to come down from his vehicle, but I refused. He said since I refused to come down, I wouldn’t live to tell the story. He brought out a bottle, broke it and stabbed me with it. He wanted to stab my face but I used my right hand to parry it and the broken bottle landed on my palm. After hitting me, he and his conductor ran away and abandoned the vehicle.
“We took the vehicle to the station. Three weeks after, he was arrested and charged to court. He admitted his wrongdoing and said it was the devil that pushed him into that.”
Last week, in the Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State, a suspected FSARS operative shot dead a LASTMA officer, Adeyemo Rotimi, who asked him to obey traffic rules.
Besides, an operative of the Federal Road Safety Corps, identified only as Ade, said he escaped death by a whisker in the hands of a reckless commercial driver.
Ade explained that on the day, the driver and his conductor threatened to push him into the Lagos lagoon on the Third Mainland Bridge for daring to enter their vehicle in a bid to arrest them for violating traffic laws.
Ade, who said he was eventually pushed out of their moving vehicle, lamented that he spent over seven months in and out of the hospital due to the varying degrees of injury he suffered after the attack.
The road safety officer stated, “The driver and his conductor were brutal. They were picking passengers on the Third Mainland Bridge. We apprehended them and I entered their vehicle for onward movement to our station.
“Their first act of brutality towards me was that they held my neck and said they would suffocate me to death. After that, they left me ruffled. They said they would teach me the lesson nobody had taught me before. While still on the Third Mainland Bridge, they wanted to push me into the lagoon. I started shouting and begging them to spare my life. Suddenly, they slowed down and pushed me out of the vehicle. They retorted, ‘stupid man, that serves you right’.”
In 2017, the FRSC Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, said their officers were attacked in some states including Abia, Jigawa and Oyo states. He recalled an incident when a motorist sped off with a female FRSC officer inside his vehicle in Abuja and the shooting of two officers by security details of the Abia State House of Assembly Speaker along the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway.
Sharing his experience, another LASTMA officer, who gave his name only as Yemi, said he was attacked by some miscreants in the Owode Elede area of Ikorodu in Lagos.
He added that trouble started when a mob attacked them for trying to apprehend a law-breaking motorist plying the Bus Rapid corridor designated only for BRT buses.
Yemi, who said he was a member of traffic officers that monitored BRT lanes, noted that when they saw the motorist, they ordered him to stop.
He stated, “The man stopped but the area boys, who knew him, came to the scene of the incident, and said we could not arrest him. But we told them that the motorist violated traffic law but they insisted that he could not be arrested and that the motorist was a prominent person in the neighbourhood.
“As we were arguing over the issue, the motorist zoomed off. In the process of rushing out of the scene, he collided with another bus and an accident occurred. One of the occupants of the vehicle went to mobilise area boys, telling them that it was LASTMA officials that caused the accident.
“As soon as the area boys arrived in the place, they descended on four of us. Two managed to escape and two of us were left at their mercy. They pounced on us, beat us mercilessly and tore our uniforms. I had internal bleeding and was rushed to the hospital. They would have killed the two of us that day if not for one of our senior officers that saw what was happening and stopped to save us.”
He added that some of their attackers even tried to pull them out of their senior officer’s vehicle that day but they didn’t succeed until he drove off.
“I later discovered that in the process of attacking us, I lost my driving licence, ATM card and my ID card,” he said.
Disturbing statistics
In December 2016, Oyeyemi said 70 officers of the commission were killed by reckless drivers that year.
He added that the figure was lower compared to the 160 deaths recorded in 2015. Also at an event in October 2018, the FRSC boss stated that in the last 18 months, the corps lost 74 officers.
Besides, the data supplied by the corps’ Public Education Officer, FRSC, Mr Bisi Kazeem, to newsmen showed that from 2015 to date, a total of 163 personnel of the corps (officers and marshals) sustained varying degrees of injury from assault, mob action and knockdowns arising from violent attacks.
Kazeem explained that out of the affected officers, four were seriously injured, one had a spinal cord injury; one had his leg amputated, and another with a fractured arm.
He said within the period under review, a total of eight patrol vehicles and several valuables were damaged in commands across the federation with an impounded vehicle forcefully taken away from the base.
Kazeem added, “In 2018 61 cases of assault, knockdowns, mob action and theft were recorded across 53 formations of the corps. Out of the personnel affected in the incidents, 16 officers and 38 marshals were injured, while two were killed.
“Specifically, of the 61 violent cases against the personnel that were recorded in 2018, 20 were knockdowns, two were kidnappings, three were abductions while two were theft cases.
“Moreover, 11 cases of assault were recorded, while 15 were mob actions and one was riot killing, among others.”
He noted that Rivers and Lagos states topped the chart of violent cases against FRSC officers with three cases each, while Niger State, Operation Cobra, FCT and others had two cases per formation.
He said 11 of the recorded cases were being heard in various courts across the country while 20 were settled out of court, using alternative dispute resolution mechanism.
Kazeem stated, “But two of the drivers involved in the violent acts were sentenced by high courts in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi, and Lokoja, Kogi State, respectively. In the case of Birnin Kebbi, where the driver hit and killed the personnel, he was sentenced to death by the court, while the one that knocked down one of the personnel in Kogi State bagged prison terms.”
In Ogun State, officials of the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, like other traffic officers, often find themselves in the harm’s way while on duty.
The Public Relations Officer, TRACE, Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, confirmed this when he said some of their officers had been attacked and killed on duty.
“Seven casualties were recorded this year. Some were killed while others suffered severe injuries and permanent disabilities,” he said.
‘Some traffic officers deserve attacks’
A motorist, who gave his name only as Nduka, believed that some road officers were attacked on duty because they exhibited wickedness and only interested in taking bribes.
He stated that many mischievous traffic officers were always happy to see people violate the law in order to fleece them.
Nduka said, “There was a day some traffic officers created artificial gridlock to enable them to catch erring drivers. Before we knew what was happening, they had arrested many drivers and booked them for as much as N50,000.
“How do you expect such a person to behave next time when he comes across traffic officers? Such a person, no doubt, will want to evade arrest. These are some of the reasons we have the kind of situation we are experiencing.”
Another commercial driver, who identified himself only as Jones, explained that attacks on traffic officers would continue until they stopped turning commercial drivers into cash cow.
He said commercial bus drivers coughed up a lot of money as bribes, noting that such development usually triggered anger between traffic officers and drivers.
Jones stated, “Whether your papers are correct, the traffic officers will always find reasons to stop you. In most cases, they delay you unnecessarily until you speak their language, which is to part with some money before they let you go.
“There was an occasion when my vehicle was stopped. They demanded my vehicle particulars. I brought everything and gave to them. One of them looked at me and said, ‘Are you a novice? Don’t you know that there are other particulars? Ask some of your colleagues in case you don’t know what to do. Let me ask you again: what is your number for today? Are you not aware that people are given numbers and that whenever they say their numbers, they are let go without further delays?’
“I will advise traffic officers to show some empathy towards motorists. They are paid with taxpayers’ money and they should stop treating us as stupid persons.”
Frustration, drug use responsible for attacks — Psychologist
A psychologist at the University of Lagos, Prof. Oni Fagbohungbe, linked the extreme behaviour of mob or motorists towards traffic officers to frustration and drug abuse.
The don explained that behaviour was dichotomous, saying if the assertion was projected further, every profession had its hazards.
He stated, “There is a theory in Psychology called ‘Frustration Aggression Theory’. Everybody has a goal, everybody has a need and for you to fulfil your needs, you have to go towards the goal where the need is available.
“Therefore, all these people that are attacking, abducting and killing road safety officers have their own goal, where their need is available. Where does frustration come in? When you are moving towards your goal and then obstacle comes in-between to frustrate you, whether it is real or imagined, when you are in trouble, survival instinct will prod you to want to overcome that obstacle. So, in an attempt to overcome the obstacle, there are two things you can do: either you direct the aggression against yourself or you direct the aggression against the obstacle.
“For example, imagine a driver, who carries contraband goods in his vehicle and then he sees road safety officer in front; the next thing that will trigger his action is survival instinct. How does he escape from these people? That will instigate a behaviour that will make him escape them. So, in the process, he either brushes them aside or knocks them down.”
He believed society also used unverifiable variables to assess people, noting that people usually based their assessment on perception.
He added, “For instance, if a young man is riding a sporty car, people do not want to know the source of that car. They now rate you along what they see you with. So, to these road safety people, the perception is that they are very rich because people see every agency of government in Nigeria as where people make money because every year, they make a budget and the budget is not utilised. Rather, it goes into pockets. They see them as people of means, that when they kidnap them, they will be able to pay. And so, some will see them as a ready source for their needs; they have money, they will pay, they do not want to die so that they can continue to stay on the road and extort money from innocent commuters.
“Another aspect is that our youths are derailing through the consumption of drugs. One thing that the drug does to people is that it alters their physiology and once that is done, one is prone to take only action that is defined by one and that makes one to ignore the laws of society.”
On his part, a public affairs commentator, Mr Buchi Ejiogu, said the level of frustration in the land was unimaginable and many people were only waiting for the slightest trigger to vent their anger.
He added, “With the annoying and sometime unreasonable attitude of some of these traffic officials who don’t hide their intentions of extorting money from motorists, it becomes very easy for confrontations to turn ugly.
“Unfortunately, it has assumed a situation where both parties are looking for an escape route. I do not seek to offer explanations to justify any form of assault on traffic officials. As someone who drives on the roads in this country, I know that our traffic officials need to understand basic human psychology.”
He urged traffic officers to show empathy especially when drivers were having problems with their vehicles on the road and not only to arrest offenders and collect bribes from them.
Nigeria’s traffic laws obsolete — Lawyer
A lawyer, Somina Johnbull, said attacks, abductions and killing of traffic officers in the country would persist until existing obsolete traffic laws were reviewed.
Johnbull, who is the Secretary, Nigeria Bar Association, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, advocated urgent amendment to the traffic laws to enable the country to catch up with current trend.
He said, “Amendment becomes imperative because traffic offences and the prescribed punishment seem to be like a slap on the wrist, which is why people can afford to breach traffic laws with impunity.
“In developed countries, the cases of offences that border on the usage of the road are taken seriously. But in Nigeria, even when you cross the red light or speeding, the laws are not enforced. My take on this pathetic state of affairs is that we must pursue enforcement and have an amendment that deals with immediate prosecution and punishment of traffic offenders.
“To get the situation right, these uniformed personnel, who flout traffic laws, should be used as scapegoats. When that is done, coupled with strong traffic laws, the problems of traffic enforcement would be reduced considerably.’’
In this article: