By Joseph Effiong, Calabar
The decision of the Federal Road Safety Corps, (FRSC), to establish Mobile Traffic Court across the country, where suspected traffic offenders are sentenced and fined, has not gone down well with a Non governmental Organisation, the Coalition for Justice and Good Governance (CJGG), which has accused FRSC of extorting not less than N1.5 billion from members of the public in connivance with the Cross River State Judiciary.
The group, in a letter made available to our reporter ,threatened to forward a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in that respect, and to report the Cross River State judiciary to the National Judicial Council for investigation if it does not account for the said sum which it said was extorted from January 2016 till date in the name of Mobile Courts.
The letter, dated March 20, 2017, and signed by the Executive Secretary of the CJGG, Dr. Osim Osim, was addressed to the Chief Judge of the state with an headline: “A Letter Of Protest How Not To Defraud A People Using A Dubious Mobile Traffic Court.’
It alleged that the Mobile Traffic Court (MTC) does not give room for fair hearing, and cited instances where offenders were let off the hook after been extorted.
Wondering why the judiciary should allow itself be used as a tool for extortion, the letter asked rhetorically: “when has Cross River State Judiciary become a money generating agency? When has our judiciary become a revenue collecting institution?”
It said further; “Our findings have shown that this daily MTC has become a money – spinning enterprise and racketeering where some commercial drivers park their vehicles 30 meters away from the check point to bribe the corrupt Road Safety officials and the collector of the bribe money is the armed Civil Defence personnel. These commercial vehicles, with no vehicle particulars and driving license, and whose vehicles are un-motorable, are allowed passage and the bribe money is between N500 – N1,000 per vehicle.
“Since the onset of this daily MTC, Cross River Judiciary has garnered about N1.5 billion at the rate of N30,000 per vehicle at an average of 50 vehicles carrying out dual MTC at Mary Slessor roundabout and Pamol section of the Highway, 25 times every month in the past 15 months. Using this, they have dubiously made the sum of over N1.5 billion.”
The CJGG said it was protesting the arraignment of traffic offenders without benefit of any legal representation as a legal entitlement and right, the “dubious court process without any modicum of fair hearing in this 21st century.”
It further decried “the one-way traffic module of this shambolic mobile court where offenders lack the ability to defend himself because the singular motive of the entire sham is not correction but blatant, brazen, shameless extortion and obtaining by trick perpetrated by a syndicate of corruption- laden FRSC officials, armed Civil Defence and fraud- infested CRS judiciary.”
The group demanded an “immediate stoppage to this senseless, thoughtless and wicked extortion fraud, OBT in the name of Mobile Traffic Court.”