For many motorists in Lagos, the fear of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, is the beginning of wisdom. Many have had nasty experiences with LASTMA officers. Some have wondered why commercial drivers, popularly called danfo drivers, seem to be above the law.
In this interview with Ayodele Olalere, the General Manager, LASTMA, Mr. Babajide Oduyoye, explaines some of the challenges the agency is facing, controlling traffic in the state as well as corrected wrong notions against LASTMA officers.
The name, LASTMA, instills fears in the minds of many motorists. It seems the organisation does not have good image among motorists. What could be responsible for this?
Anywhere in the world where you have offenders and enforcers, there will always be a bad name coming out of it. If you look at what is coming out of it now, we are having issues with ENDSARS protesters but nobody can come and say that the purpose for which SARS was brought in is not real or valid.
This is because we have bad people among us, people who are ready to rob people and we have bad people both in England and America. The police in America is seen, as the enemy because they have to enforce the law; the same way with police in England. So, naturally, the police or any enforcer is seen as an enemy.
The traffic controllers in England, incidentally, have a lot of black people that work in that agency and, every single day, they are seen as the enemy because they enforce the parking control on the road. If you park longer than you paid for, they will give you a ticket, which will cost you money.
So, LASTMA will not have a good name on that sphere with those that are typical offenders. There are lots of offenders in Lagos and it’s about every aspect of our lives. The same way we have offenders on the road that would be willing to give enforcer a bad name, we also have bad people in every agency and LASTMA is not an exception.
The truth is that if I am being nice to you from Monday to Saturday, because that is what you expect from me, you don’t need to talk about it because that is what you expect. But if on Sunday I act badly, then you will pick up that Sunday because you do not expect me to be bad to you on Sunday and that becomes an issue. You are likely to give me a bad name because you expect me to be good from Monday to Sunday. That is why when a few officers in LASTMA are misbehaving on the road, doing what is not expected, the bad name will follow automatically.
What is the agency doing concerning the few bad eggs?
LASTMA is a government agency, and all officers in LASTMA are civil servants. They are employed into government circle under one type of umbrella. LASTMA officers are not engaged separately. There are rules that govern the employment of everyone that is in the service and it is those rules that we have to follow to a significant part. What we do is that we set up a body in-house to investigate reports that we have enough evidence. In my experience, a lot of motorists that are real offenders can come out across as not telling the truth.
They will formulate a story that is not true. Someone who is not pregnant would say she’s pregnant, that’s why she’s not wearing seat belts and there is no evidence to corroborate the story because not wearing seat belts is an offence. So, if I pick you up for using telephone while driving, you tell me you have an emergency because your child has just been kicked out of school or you need to go to the hospital. How do I verify all that? So, I need to arrest you first.
So, we had to create an environment to investigate the story. Is it a story against a bad Officer or is it the offender, coming up with a story to cover for their offence? If we find the officer wanting, they go through the normal disciplinary procedure. They get warning, depending on the offence if it’s a first or second warning. There are categories of offences you can commit as a traffic officer. It’s a laid down rules and regulations. There are certain actions negatively committed by an officer, which can lead to dismissal. We have taken nothing less than 50 erring officers through this process.
The same rule will not allow me, as a public servant to go back to the public and start mentioning names of officers we have disciplined. We have to work within the public service system. It does not mean we are not doing anything about them. A lot of officers have left the system. In the last four years, there are over 150 officers that have left as a result of death, dismissal and other reasons.
We don’t harbour bad people but before you point fingers, you must come with evidence because that is what the law says. That is where I expect support from the motoring public and those that say negative things. Don’t just accuse LASTMA officers of taking money. Get the evidence that would help to stop the accused officer from lying when he or she is shown the evidence.
But there is concern about the calibre of people employed into the agency. There have been several cases of LASTMA officers, behaving like touts when arresting an offender. What would you say to that?
LASTMA was 20 years in July. Civil Service Commission from Alausa employs LASTMA officers and they employ just like they employ for other agencies. Some came in with Masters, PhD, HND or O’levels, so they were employed based on their certificates.
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So, it’s the training they are given based on the job they will do that will determine whether they are fit to do the job or not and that is where the system comes in. It’s not LASTMA that determines who is to be employed. Sometimes, you go on the road and if you are not able to speak Yoruba, you can’t do the job. You must be flexible and able to interact.
We are in an environment where we need to look at things before we condemn the agency and the officers. If it was another country, you could not touch the uniform of an officer. I control traffic on the road and I know what you are talking about. It’s not uncommon for three people out of 100 to rain insult on me whereas if I weren’t there, traffic would not flow well.
If I don’t have self-control, I could easily abuse the person’s parent and before you know, there would be problems. The next thing, you see in the news “LASTMA GM is fighting” and it will go viral.
The motoring public who are fond of offending don’t like to be corrected. Sometimes, people ask why don’t we educate. There are some motorists that are beyond correction. I have talked to people, who drive big cars and have travelled out. Anytime I talk to them, they look down on me, thinking am beneath them.
They are doing something wrong, you don’t want to arrest them, you try to educate them only for them to tell you to get lost. As an officer who needs to enforce, I can change my mind and say I don’t want to educate anymore, I want to enforce. For me to want to speak with you for five seconds and educate you at a junction, it means I’m creating another 30 seconds of delay behind you.
As General Manager of LASTMA, what challenges were you faced with and how were you able to surmount them?
When I first came, the situation on ground was not new to me. Identifying the challenges wasn’t too difficult. In this town, you need money. Covid-19 hit us in the beginning of the year and funding to change things faded away. We couldn’t do things we wanted to do. There were too many accidents on the road and anything that obstruct traffic in Lagos is a challenge for me. The challenge is reducing the factors that constitute impediments and to interact with the public and make them understand the problem they are facing is not just about LASTMA.
Third mainland bridge, Eko bridge and others are under construction… These are real challenges. We also have officers that are frustrated under the system. They feel what they are being paid is not helping them to survive as a person so the passion to do the job is diminished. They feel the system does not care for them. So, I have personnel who don’t get to their point of work in time because of the distance from their houses to where they are supposed to resume.
Traffic starts from 4am, especially for those moving from mainland to Island and if a LASTMA officer is not on the road to control traffic, they would soon be choked up. So, you see the problems are still there.
Drivers on Lagos roads can be Killers. You don’t have to get a knife to kill anyone in Lagos, you just have to get a car. The statistics are there. If we don’t chat, we will find innocent lives being lost as a result of our attitude.
Apart from the ones you have mentioned, what are the other causes of traffic congestion on Lagos roads?
Our public transport system is not where it should be. When you have a city that is megacity like Lagos, you must have mass transit system. What we have so far is just the BRT. We need to improve on the water ways transport system. Most importantly, rail must work. The freight must work and be moved by rail. Breakdowns on the road on a daily basis is a major issue. If freight transport was there, we would not have the high volume of trucks that move on the road.
There are more trucks approaching the ports than the ports can accommodate. So, they are sitting on the road constituting gridlock and not allowing traffic to flow. You also have bad roads, which slows down traffic. These are major issues.
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There is also our planning and environmental laws. There are two categories of bad spirits for traffic. The first one is the yellow buses and their operators. These are bad spirits. No matter how much you collaborate with them or beg them, don’t even go into enforcement, they won’t listen. You also have the market people.
Lagos markets are on the road. They occupy the walkways. They extend their shops to the walkways, forcing people to walk on the main road. The danfo drivers pick the people on the road and leave small space on the road for other road users. Out of all these factors, who is to blame?
Some people have accused LASTMA officers that it’s because they own the yellow buses that’s why they don’t arrest them. I challenge anyone with such accusations to work with me for 24hrs and let’s go and arrest those yellow buses, and then you will see if you are a civil person or not. To successfully arrest a danfo driver offender, you need nothing less four LASTMA officers. Even with that, if it does not turn to roforofo fight, you can’t arrest them. The danfo drivers wear a different spirit when they get behind their Volkswagen buses. They climb anything and face traffic on the opposite side with fully loaded passengers.
If you arrest danfo driver with passengers that includes a pregnant woman or elderly person, or a child and unfortunately they get injured or get killed, it’s that LASTMA officer that is trying to apprehend a bad driver that is creating traffic, that will be in trouble. If the people don’t pounce on him and kill Jim, he would be lucky. So, when that happens over and over again, and you recruit me into LASTMA, and I have beautiful wife and children and I come on the road and you tell me I should apprehend danfo drivers, knowing fully well how they behave, I would fold my hands and not be watching than for me to go and stand in front of danfo.
Unfortunately because danfo drivers know that situation, they now take advantage and create all sorts of nuisance on the road.
The private car owners will now say LASTMA officers arrest only them and leave danfo drivers. The fact is don’t be an offender.
If I am asked to go and catch a fish in the water, I don’t know which fish is there. If I see a shark, I will not be stupid to attempt to catch a shark, I will run away. But if I see a Tilapia fish coming, I will catch it.
What are you doing to make the danfo drivers (the shark) understand the need to obey traffic laws?
The danfo operators and their unions are there under the umbrella of wanting to survive. They don’t have university degrees to go and work in the banks or oil industry but they have the right to live in the state. In the absence of mass transport system that we are supposed to provide, there is a vacuum. There is a demand and they are ready to provide it. It is open for now and because it is not regulated, it means the one who is more aggressive at the bus stops gets to pick passengers first.
There are also collaborative passengers who, when they get to the bus stops, would find young and older people there. Because they see these ones as vulnerable, instead of standing and queuing at the bus, they will leave the bus stop, go a little further so they could into the bus ahead of those on the queue. You now see bus drivers stopping where they are not supposed to stop to pick passengers instead of getting to the bus stop.
We do collaborate with the establishment of the danfo drivers but they do have their challenges too. There are buses working on the road illegally. They are not painted in yellow so the question is who owns them? Military people. They have access to guns; LASTMA does not. When there is misbehaviour, the union t we collaborate with will point fingers at the unpainted buses and complain they are taking their jobs.
A lot of things that happens on the road is not the wish of LASTMA or government; it is what it is.
Drivers on Lagos roads can be Killers. You don’t have to get a knife to kill anyone in Lagos, you just have to get a car. The statistics are there. If we don’t chat, we will find innocent lives being lost as a result of our attitude.
If I am asked to go and catch a fish in the water, I don’t know which fish is there. If I see a shark, I will not be stupid to attempt to catch a shark, I will run away. But if I see a Tilapia fish coming, I will catch it.
