Politics
THE high command of the FRSC is worried over the penchant for operatives of the establishment to engage in under-hand activities while on duty.
According to a top official of the FRSC, operatives of the corps routinely engage in illegal activities, ranging from extortion, bribery and misconduct while on duty on highways.
The Zonal Commanding Officer in charge of Ogun and Lagos State operations of the FRSC, Mr Samuel Obayemi, made the announcement in Lagos on Tuesday.
He said the development was rubbishing the image of the organisation, once known for parading itself as an organisation where corruption is low.
The officer said the corps was also worried over reports of increasing rate of attacks on officers while on duty.
Speaking at the FRSC Zone RS2 Fourth Quarter 2019 Retreat on “Building Capacity towards Effective Implementation of Operation Zero Tolerance”, Obayemi told commanding officers of the establishment to expose bad eggs in the company.
Obayemi, an Assistant Corps Marshal, said that exposing bad people in the FRSC was crucial for the company to move forward and achieve its set goals.
Making remarks on crime and criminality involving staff of the company, Obayemi, pleaded with officers to redeem the image of the FRSC, noting that no corrupt officer should be shielded.
According to him, incidences that plagued the corps in the out-going year include assaults, mob actions, kidnapping of staff as well as crime and criminality involving staff of the establishment.
Obayemi disclosed that from January till date, the company had recorded 143 cases of assaults, harassment, knock downs, abductions and attacks on staff.
He said that incident of knocking down of FRSC operatives rose from 18 in 2018 to 60 in 2019.
“Several unfortunate incidents have claimed the lives of staff with others being injured. We have knockdowns while on duty which total 62. So far, six deaths have been recorded and 73 injured.
“So, as commanding officers, we are expected to regularly brief our officers and marshals, who go on patrol. We need to tell them on daily basis what we expect them to do.
“Wrong position, jumping on the road to stop vehicles are some of the factors responsible for some of the knockdowns that we have recorded so far.
“Most of these negative reports that we are getting are all emanating from patrol misconducts,” the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quotes Obayemi as saying.
According to him, since his assumption of duty as the zonal commanding officer at the RS2 command, 18 patrol teams have been arrested for bribe collection.
“This is a very ugly development and it is so worrisome. The question is how do we get here? The truth of the matter is nobody is comfortable about this.
“No matter what we do and how right we carry out our responsibility, the moment one person collects bribe, it will rubbish corporate image of the corps. Misconduct of any staff must be nipped in the bud.”
The FRSC chief, who said that several officers had been punished even with dismissal for misconducts, added that some unit commands had equally been disbanded for gross misconducts.
Obayemi, who reeled out expectations for 2020, called for an increased number and quality of enlightenment campaigns.
In a speech, Mr Hyginus Omeje, the Lagos State Sector Commander of the FRSC, said the meeting was to brainstorm on “Operation Zero Tolerance, 2019” to ensure free flow of traffic and reduce carnages.
Omeje, who noted that if anything went wrong, officers would be held responsible, urged the officers to deliver the corps’ mandate, provide right leadership and operate above board.
On attacks on officers and men of the corps on duty, Omeje urged team commanders to be up and doing, saying the attack became more when some team leaders started compromising.
“If we don’t checkmate what is happening, we are not safe. We need to watch please. Some of our patrol teams have thrown caution to the wind.
“There is need to check the activities of these bag eggs and identify them at various commands and use due process to ease them out of the system before they pull down the house on us.”
According to him, the corps has an inherent mechanism to weed off corrupt officers before they destroy the image of the company.
The Executive Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Mr Debo Adeniran, who elucidated on corruption, said the menace had reduced chances of increasing human capital investment, standard of living and stagnated development.
Delivering a paper on “Understanding Corruption: Individual and Collective Rules in Curbing It”, Adeniran identified corruption to include grand corruption and petty corruption.
Adeniran said that education could help prevent corruption by fostering a culture of integrity, adding that redesigning governance process could make corruption avoidance practical. (NAN)
– Dec. 17, 2019 @ 13:55 GMT |
Tags: Operatives’ penchant for corruption worries FRSC high command
