Road Checkpoints:Who Are Those Involved?

In my secondary school days,we had barricades at strategic locations.Being a former Teachers Training College,my Alma Mater is located on a vast expanse of land.The school could be larger than the university that I am schooling in presently,which is more of a glorified secondary school.The school was not fenced,had no gate and looked more of a village.Some of the paths within the school premises were barricaded to check the movement of vehicles and individuals.Similar barricades have come to be on our highways.

I've been privileged to visit different parts of this great nation,mostly by road and will always come across checkpoints,where vehicles are stopped for scrutiny peradventure there are offences against the rules guiding road usage.The law guiding the road users and the people that instituted it had good intentions.It must have been done for the peace and security of road users.Nowadays,constant road users will agree with me that there are numerous and sometimes unnecessary checkpoints on our roads,some of which are for victimizing road users,instead of protecting them.

The question that comes to ones mind will be-who and who are involved in the supposed scrutiny?Road checkpoints used to be for policemen and members of the Federal Road Safety Commission(FRSC).Others are illegally now having their way on our roads.We now have touts,men of the FRSC and others.

There are touts on our roads,who accost drivers for different tickets and licenses they are meant to have.Some of the touts go with policemen,constituting nuisance on our roads.Their bad approach to the drivers and lack of common manners towards the road users pose a threat to the road users.I learnt that some of the touts are employed by some ministries and agencies of the government.They cause more harm than good.They cause accidents on our roads when they pursue and distract drivers on duty.There are also fake groups of touts that camouflage to extort money from road users.These touts are ever ready to inflict pain on the drivers or damage any part of their vehicles.I recently was a victim of the operations of these heartless and unmannered touts.

The police are the next group of people on our roads.They've been given the responsibility of protecting the lives and property of civilians.They are supposed to protect the citizens of the nation from terrorists,militants and men of the underworld,but unfortunately these men have left their work for other irrelevant things.The policemen now specialize in extorting from drivers,collecting twenty naira from them.Some of them threaten to shoot to kill anyone that disobeys.Despite the increment in their salaries,they have only succeeded in getting bad image for the public by this 'tax collection.'Some of them even refuse to collect twenty naira and go ahead to punish those who refuse to pay more.The highway patrol team that usually go on jeep have a special way for extorting.They have made themselves 'principalities and powers' on our roads,looking for whom to devour.There car boots serve as 'baskets' for the 'illegal offerings.'Drivers park and come over to drop reasonable amount of money before continuing their journey.They claim that they are checking the particulars of vehicles,but end up granting 'amnesty' to those that 'roger' them.They block roads,causing accidents and gridlocks.They carefully escape, at the sight of armed robbers,thus leaving the road users at the mercies of God.These road-blocks are numerous-sometimes up to 20 within a short distance.It forces drivers to make available,twenty naira notes for settlement of the policemen.

The FRSC men have their own checkpoints.They usually pitch their tents close to the policemen.They're supposed to check the condition of the vehicles on our roads and at the same time enforcing traffic rules,but that is not always the case.Some of them prefer the money they get from offenders to the sanity of the process.No wonder we have many 'mobile caskets' on our roads in the name of commercial vehicles.

The soldiers that are supposed to be seen during serious crisis and wars also flood our roads.They intimidate and harass drivers,extorting money from them.All these people waste the time of road users.Some of them intentionally tell drivers to park their vehicles,even though they did not commit any offence,thus forcing the impatient ones to pay their way through.

As the federal government plans to re-introduce the toll-gates that were shut down by Obasanjo,to raise money for road maintainance,we pray that it yields its desired result.These checkpoints(both legal and illegal) that have flooded our roads seemingly replaced the squashed toll-gates and should be critically looked into.

The government should devise stiffer and more co-ordinated measures to check the activities of the men at these checkpoints,so as to ease the inconveniencies meted to the road users.We are just tired of their troubles!