There is a good chance that at least one in five Nigerians have had an encounter with the official motorcade of a highly placed government official, what is generally referred to as “convoy”. Within cities across the country, these convoys have caused disruption of traffic sometimes with fatal consequences. They move around in total disregard for the rights of other road users. With sirens blaring like ambulance vehicles, the convoys of privileged government officials are every ordinary Nigerian road user’s nightmare, whether moving within the towns and cities or on the highways. During the immediate past regime of President Goodluck Jonathan, the use, or more appropriately misuse, of convoys attained a peak of tyrannical proportions. The law, which regulates the exercise of power had all but broken down under the regime of Mr. Jonathan, so the services of convoys and sirens and police escorts was available for anyone who could afford it. Naturally those included the ones in the good books of the regime and the ones who had unlimited access to resources from which they can finance whatever lifestyle appealed to them. In those days, the Asari Dokubos (pray! where is that man?), the Tompolos and every jerk with money had police escorts complete with a siren with which he cruises around town and across the country intimidating, trampling upon the rest of us and generally making life more miserable for the ordinary Nigerian.
As well as other bigger offensive behaviour such as stealing public money with impunity, it was these other ‘smaller’ acts of brigandage that finally made the Nigerian voter to decide that he’d had enough; a resolve that finally pushed all of us to rise up with full force against the Jonathan regime. The result was the comprehensive victory recorded by the current ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
President Muhammadu Buhari, who emerged victorious over Jonathan, wisely and mercifully decided that one of his first act was to make his presidency less obnoxious and therefore more people friendly by taking a very tough stand against the use and misuse of convoys and sirens. The result was instantaneous; Abuja, where the president resides, immediately became quieter, traffic became less chaotic except for the inevitable rudeness of taxi drivers. Abuja residents heaved a sigh of relief and somehow we began to drive around like human beings again.
But unfortunately, there are increasing signs that subtly but steadily, the old order whereby highly placed government officials disregard traffic rules and move around mindlessly oppressing ordinary Nigerians through the misuse of convoys, police escorts and sirens is coming back. Whereas within Abuja the sanity appears to be holding at least as far as reckless misuse of privileges of right of way is concerned, this is not so in many state capitals where state governors, with few exceptions, move with increasing disregard for the rights of the ordinary Nigerian. But where this blatant abuse of power and privilege is most pronounced is along our major highways connecting states and cities.
On several occasions, this reporter has had a most frustrating experience where the convoy of one or another government official would block the right of way to all other road users and force everybody behind them to move at their speed and in the process generating a needless traffic situation involving sometimes hundreds of vehicles. Only last week such a situation developed along the Abuja-Kaduna highway which is often the most notorious for such breaches. Because I was involved and was forced to drive behind this “convoy of tyranny”, I tried to determine the number plates on the vehicles on that convoy, so that I could lodge official complaint afterward, but it was no use. As it turned out, whoever that particular cruel, vainglorious government official was, he was only cruel and vain and lawless; but he wasn’t stupid.
Because he knew what he was doing was illegal, he made sure that not a single one of the vehicles in his stupid convoy was carrying any kind of registration or identification number plate. As we drove on in frustration, I tried to reflect on the various missions of my co-travelers whose progress had been truncated by the singular inconsiderate act of an individual. There could be people there who might be carrying patients to National Hospital in Abuja and needed to hurry up to get to their destination; there might have been others who had a scheduled flight to catch at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport at Abuja.
There could be students who had scheduled lectures or exams and needed to reach Abuja in good time. Indeed there might have been travelers with even greater emergencies than anybody could imagine, all of us pinned down and at the mercy of whoever it was that felt he had the right of way that was supreme. I looked at at my speedometer and noticed that we were all going at a speed of 80km/hour or less. I shook my head. At the tail end of the convoy was a police truck with about four armed policemen; any brave (or foolish) effort to force a way through that convoy could result in an “accidental discharge” that could be fatal. Exasperating as it was, the only option was to accept our fate and hope that whoever it was that had blocked the passage of so many innocent people, will one day realize that he might well find his way similarly blocked when he needed to make faster progress.
After a while, I saw an official vehicle of FRSC parked by the wayside. I immediately pulled over, partly because I needed to confirm the official speed limit on that particular highway and partly to extricate myself from the increasingly dangerous situation that was developing as more vehicles piled up behind that convoy of tyranny. I greeted the three tired looking officers lounging by their truck asked them what the official speed limit is on that particular highway. They told me it was 120km/hour. When I asked if they had noticed anything unusual about the convoy that had just passed, they confirmed that it was indeed obstructing traffic but because ‘big men are above the law”, there wasn’t anything they could do. In Abuja, when I narrated my frustrating experience to a few of my friends, almost everyone there had a similar tale of woe to tell. One said only a few days ago, they were blocked by the wife of a state governor who was travelling along the Kaduna-Zaria highway.
It would seem that the more things change, the more some things remain the same. If only those FRSC officials that concentrate their energies within Abuja looking for motorists not wearing seat belts will move out unto the highways and rescue hapless Nigerians against those tyrants of the highways, they would have justified their salaries many times over. I am sure the president is not aware of this and I hope that some Good Samaritan will bring his attention to it. If we are fighting corruption, we should fight every manifestation of it.