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They First Break The Law By Yakubu Maitalata Kwassam
It was a normal Wednesday morning without rain or clouds hanging in the sky. The weather was clear and the atmosphere conducive for those driving to the offices. The morning rush to offices was gradually building up a traffic jam. This usually require the Police and Federal Road Safety Corps to always be on standby in the morning to ensure that road users do not constitute a nuisance on the road.
I occasionally do not feel up to driving. On one of such mornings I decided to board a commercial vehicle to the office. The vehicle I boarded was heading for Abuja from Mararaba axis. At first, the driver was calm and steady on the steering not till he sighted some FRSC staff in front flanking the road by the right-hand side. He tramped on the break and made effort to move to the middle lane but it was too late. One of the FRSC members came forward and raised his hands asking the driver to stop and park by the pedestrian. The driver first slowed down as if he was going to obey. The passengers advised him to obey but just of a sudden the driver changed his countenance and started driving right into the FRSC staff pushing him like an object on the road. The FRSC staff had to give way while his female colleague was shouting at the driver who turned a deaf ear to it and detoured onto a laterite road and headed-off into Nyanya leading to another link-up road to the Abuja-Keffi road.
Thus, I witnessed how an “Araba” (as they are popularly called) could be cruel and gallantly fight his way defying the voice of reason. I equally saw the risk of being a law enforcement agent. I became inquisitive. I decided to ask the driver why he could not obey the FRSC staff’s directive to stop. He gave this quip reply “They first break the law.” What a puzzling reply! “How?” I politely asked him. “They allow government buses and these el-rufai buses to carry overload and they start disturbing us when we carry overload.” Ironically, as the Araba driver was struggling with the FRSC staff, truly, one of the Urban Mass Transit buses was on the left lane fully loaded, with some passengers standing.
The above encounter is mind-boggling because of the sheer display of selective justice by some law enforcement agents which occasionally prompts “jungle justice.” Though I did not agree with the Araba driver that the FRSC staff break the law but I think his statement is not far from the truth. They do not really break the law but they are selective in the enforcement of the law. I will neither accept the justification by Araba for carrying overload nor will I advise them to apply jungle justice in pushing their grievances home. In either case, whether head or tail, confrontation with law enforcement agent does not justify an illegality. But it is a pointer to the law enforcement agencies to know what could happen in the event of selective enforcement of law. They are not only exposed to the risk of being pushed-over but they also sow the seed of lawlessness. If the enforcement is done without selection and it is known and seen to be so, then all citizens will know that they are all equal before the law and no body is above the law.
Yakubu Maitalata Kwassam wrote in from the Digital Bridge Institute, Abuja.
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