In general, the relationship between those in charge of governing the country at all levels and the citizens they govern appears to avoid the principle of social or political contract. Complying with the principle of democracy that expects citizens to yield their power to govern themselves to representatives and in the process expect those authorised by elections to govern the society to provide public order and welfare of citizens hardly lasts beyond election time in our country, especially in years before the era of change. Nowhere is the condescending attitude of government to citizens more evident in recent times than in the decision of Federal Road Safety Commission to impose purchase of speed limiter on citizens.
Road safety touches everyone not just drivers of vehicles. And precisely because it affects everybody, there is no one single policy to cover it. Instead, the common sense approach is to look for a collection of means and policies which, while aimed at different groups, will together contribute to the overall goal of accident prevention on our roads. Sadly, speed delimiter is not one of them. There are numerous examples, including those of best practices across the world that Federal Road Safety Commission and other promoters of speed delimiters can copy or borrow.
The history of FRSC is too well-known to be repeated here. One of the world’s most fertile minds, Wole Soyinka, encouraged the government of Babangida to support an agency capable of protecting road users from road abusers. The agency in its infancy was to provide services that the regular police force could not provide because of its own technological and moral deficit. At that time, as now, police on the highways created roadblocks to extort money from drivers in the name of checking their ‘road particulars.’ Under the military, the FRSC grew phenomenally to the point of becoming a major Internally Generated Revenue agency during the last sixteen years of post-military rule. First, under the guise of enhancing the unity of the country, it took over functions that belong to local governments in most federal democracies: issuance of driver’s licence, vehicle registration, and schools certified to issue certificates of completion of traffic rules and regulations course to applicants for driver’s licence.
The latest of FRSC’s commercial ingenuity is the introduction of speed limiters that all vehicle owners must purchase to make it compulsory for them to drive within speed limit. The reasoning behind this new policy is rooted in the supposed empowerment of the commission by the National Road Transportation Regulation (NRTR) 2012, enacted to replace the FRSC Act of 2007. Without doubt, citizens and the media must have been asleep when this regulation was enacted. In addition, lawmakers sent to the National Assembly to represent the interests of voters must have failed to brief their constituencies adequately on such an important regulation. But that a law is already on the book does not mean that it can be used to embarrass citizens without just cause.
The law that passes the responsibility of government to citizens and enjoins citizens to spend money to provide a service that their tax money was designed to provide needs to be reviewed. This regulation may be entrepreneurially wise, especially in view of FRSC’s boast that, if properly enforced, it can bring about N1 billion to the agency in the first instance. But in terms of democratic culture, it is a decision loaded against citizens who are being asked to pay for public order twice, through tax and through purchase of speed limiter.
That one of the functions of FRSC is to prevent or reduce accidents by enforcing speed limits does not make it the responsibility of citizens to buy devices to limit speed. What is required of citizens in the context of social contract is for citizens to act as socially responsible members of the society by driving in compliance with the posted speed limit. Such discipline is acquired through civic education and proper training of aspiring drivers in road etiquette and proficiency in driving. On the other hand, it is the duty of FRSC to first provide visible speed limit signs along the roads and to enforce speed limit by taking other steps that societies that manufacture speed limiting-devices do to ensure road safety. In the first place, speed limiting devices do not prevent cars from moving beyond certain specified limits. If speed limiter works like magic, it will perhaps be more cost effective for FRSC to insist that vehicles that come to this country are built by manufacturers with engines that cannot go beyond a specified speed limit. Manufacturers of such devices recognise that speed limits vary from one neighbourhood to the other. For example, where the speed limit is 25 kilometres, a vehicle that is set not to go beyond 100 kilometres can still do 75 kilometres in a 25 kilometre zone, if human discretion is disregarded, as it seems to have been done by fanatics of speed limiters in FRSC.
Secondly, FRSC acts in a way to make citizens suspect that the desire to generate revenue is more important than investing in law enforcement by an agency charged with providing public order. If speed limiter is a magic wand, why would a government agency insist that there is a particular kind of such device that vehicle owners must buy? If different cars can be driven in the country, shouldn’t it be expected that speed limiters manufactured by various companies in different parts of the world can equally provide efficient service, like the vehicles imported to the country from all corners of the globe? What is the reason for FRSC’s insistence on a particular brand of speed limiter? Such insistence disrespects citizens’ right to choose the goods they want to spend their hard-earned money on.
Thirdly, by insisting on the use of speed limiter to enforce speed limit laws, FRSC acts as if it wants to pass the buck. In other countries, law enforcement agencies procure the gadgets they need for making citizens obey traffic regulations. Speed limit signs are provided at strategic places for citizens to see. Radars are deployed to check drivers that exceed speed limit; traffic safety officers are deployed to stop such drivers and slap them with traffic violation fines that they are compelled to pay. Proper vehicle worthiness regulations are enforced by properly equipped agencies. In terms of cost effectiveness, one radar can identify millions of road users while each speed limiter functions only in respect of the vehicle that carries it. It may be better for the government to equip FRSC adequately to enforce speed limits without over stretching the budget of citizens in a country where each citizen is compelled to act as provider of municipal service—from providing electricity through generators to providing water through boreholes and providing maternity service to pregnant women through praying centres.
As we enter the second year in the regime of change, the government needs to adopt a new orientation that mandates government ministries, departments, and agencies to imbibe the culture of social contract, in preference to pretending, as FRSC does, to have a good public order enforcement system. The basis of any democratic constitution is belief by citizens and their representatives in the principle of social contract; delegation of power by citizens to politicians through voting and support of the government through tax in exchange for provision of security, public order, and policies that enhance citizens’ welfare.
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