Mr Yemi Odubela is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA). In this interview with Sunday Vanguard, the former Commissioner of Police bares his mind on various issues affecting the agency especially the current face-off between the state agencies and officials of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), through the Federal Ministry of Works, led by the Minister, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe. Mr Odubela explains the genesis of the crisis among others. Excepts:
WHAT law established Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and what are the functions of the agency?
LASTMA as an authority was established in July 13, 2000, consequent upon the electoral promise of the present Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as one of the measures to solve the chaotic traffic situation which had characterised Lagos roads. Hitherto, during the regime of former governor of the state, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, we had an agency called “Maja Maja”, an agency charged with the responsibility of traffic management. Ever since, attempts have been made to make sure that we have such laws that back up LASTMA, that law was passed by members of the State House of Assembly in the year 2000.
In essence therefore, LASTMA is a legal body backed by the law, and its primary function is the regulation of traffic and to relate effectively with other agencies, vis-a-vis the police and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in the control and management of traffic in Lagos area. We are also expected to embark on training of local and staff traffic personnel.
Well, the authority was mandated specifically to make sure LASTMA provides succour within Lagos metropolis and in doing so, that we embark on effective traffic control and enforcement of state and national traffic laws as well as arrest road traffic offenders, and also educate them on the proper use of highways. It is also the duty of LASTMA to ensure channelisation of roads which has helped to reduce accidents and damages on our roads. From time to time, we evolve ways of trying to improve the situation of traffic in Lagos.
In a nutshell, our mission statement is to reduce deaths on the highways, injuries and economic losses, congestions and delays on public highways by employing modern management traffic control. LASTMA is charged to inject whatever it takes to improve traffic, we have about 250 motor bikes for patrol and to monitor traffic, we are the only agency that has communication equipment totally committed towards traffic control. We are also the agency that has heavy towing vehicles.
For instance, between the hours of 6 to 9 a.m everyday, we evacuate about six trailers that might have broken down overnight. We have knowledgeable and intelligent men within our hierarchy, as a result, we have been able to employ HND, OND and B.Sc holders, some of them with masters degrees. As at today, we have about 1,000 personnel, though not sufficient in anyway to cope with the enormity of traffic problems in Lagos State.
You did not actually mention the exorbitant fines imposed on defaulters by your agency. Secondly, the indiscriminate arrests and towing of vehicles by LASTMA officials on the roads is unbecoming, what efforts have been made to address these excesses?
Worldwide, motorists break traffic rules and are penalised. The difference may be that in the advanced world, you have private agencies to commercialise the activities, in other words, your vehicle breaks down, within five minutes they get there and tow it maybe for fee or not I would not know.
In Lagos in particular, vehicles do breakdown, we appreciate that most of them are second hand “Tokunbo”. I was in London and during the peak hours, it was bumper to bumper, nobody dares to veer off the road. Apart from people seeing you as a madman, camera is there to catch you. The N25,000 fine imposed is just to serve as a deterrent to the offenders. If you have to cough out N25,000, next time you will caution yourself not to go against or violate traffic rules.
Yet we call ourselves the giant of Africa, then how do we rate Republic of Benin, or Togo? Their level of compliance with traffic rules is almost 100 per cent as against our culture or compliance here. Initially, we used to charge N2,500 fine on any offender, but later on, we had to review it, considering the fact that it is our duty to save lives.
At the time we made up our minds, we undertook a study and found out that more of private car owners than commercial buses drive against the traffic. So, we believe that if it is white collar offence, we should jerk up the fine to N25,000 as a deterrent and punishment to offenders, it is not that we are unmindful of the hardship in the country, we do not need the money, but if the N25,000 will deter them, (offenders) then, so be it. We cannot equate the life of a human being to N25,000. The money may be too high, we owe nobody any apology on that.
I must be sincere with you, until Ogunlewe started his trouble a few months ago, we had recorded a considerable high level of compliance. To further make them feel the gravity of the offence, we decided to include compulsory psychiatric test.
Many who have been in the ministry of works for years know that the Ministry of Works has nothing to do with traffic control or management. We grew up in Lagos, never in the history had Federal Ministry of Works officials or the state Ministry of Works officials, then known as PWD come to any road to control traffic, and I want to believe Ogunlewe is old enough to be able to decipher the implications of his directives, to actually know whether he is competent to give such order.
It is absolutely absurd for a federal minister to cite an obsolete law as an authority. You never expected him to have probably done that if he decided to rely on a legal section that is irrelevant, he has even ridiculed the Federal Government by so doing.
The workers of the Ministry of Works would have been ridiculed too. Ignorantly, he gave a directive, citing an obsolete and irrelevant laws and authority asking that LASTMA should vacate the federal highways in Lagos. If he had been adequately told that but for LASTMA, lives would have been totally grounded to a halt in Lagos State, he would not have given the directive. If for any political reasons he wanted to gain prominence, one would have expected a federal minister to have been painstaking and to have considered the legal implications of the directive.
What led to the recent face-off between LASTMA and FERMA, how did it come about and how do you react to people consistently criticizing the exorbitant fine of N25,000 by your agency?
I can not say how it all started, but I know that suddenly, a senator who is also the Minister of Works, who was directed by the president to rehabilitate 500 roads, who coincidentally is an indigene of the state, exhumed outdated laws and rushed to the press, thinking he had gotten an instrument to push us out of the highways. That law he refers to was made in 1990 and he referred to another one in 1982, but the two had been rendered irrelevant in 1992 when the Federal Road Safety Corps was established by Act of Government.
Traffic control
And when the FRSC was established, it was expected to work in trunk roads only, that is, inter state roads, they are not meant for municipal traffic control and management, but our minister did not take pain to research into this, he decided to goof, it is unfortunate. The most ridiculous of it is that he sent out his men, he appointed some 17 men, he called Special Implementation Assistants appointed for Lagos only, against LASTMA to vacate highways.
Edo has done the same, he did not tell them to vacate highways, even Rivers State, so what is his aim? Does he want to bring succour or hardship to the people of the state?
But we are not worried, they recently empowered the FRSC to manage traffic in the state, I must say they are welcome, our men are definitely going to work in partnership with them as it is always the case with FRSC and other law enforcement agencies in the past. On the violent clashes with FERMA, when the minister gave the order, he empowered one Engineer Adedolapo Adeniji who is a Controller of Works in Lagos State to ensure that LASTMA officials were sacked from the federal roads, but he could not get the police to do it, because they (police) know their right.
We wrote back to Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in-charge of Zone II Onikan to intimate them that we have not committed any wrong and told them the position of the law. No fewer than 13 LASTMA officials have been violently attacked during several attacks launched on our men. Some are still in the hospital receiving medical treatments.
This is definitely and totally out of place for anybody to do, let alone a Federal Minister. I believe, he should be sacked by the President if they are so serious about their professed war on corruption and indiscipline.
Ogunlewe even dabbled into collection of fines as part of various listed offences in Lagos State, this is absurd. His cohort who are mainly political failures have continued to unleash terror on our men and the people of the state.
But I must say this, we have the backing of the law and the state government, we shall remain unshaken in our resolve to sanitise the Lagos roads and restore its past glory. No amount of harassment and their brigandage would deter us from our legitimate duty.
Before LASTMA came into being, there were chaotic traffic situations where precious man-hour were lost to traffic jam. We discovered when vehicles broke down, they would be abandoned. We have been able to see that most of the roads in Lagos are bad and not wide enough. Most of them are extremely busy. Lagos alone carries about 45 per cent of the vehicular traffic in the country. One of the reasons for high rates of deterioration of the roads in the state, apart from the humid nature is the torrential rains and the terrain itself.
So as the LASTMA came on, we first had to register our presence, by making sure that those days of standstill and exchanging of pleasantry on the road would be gone for good. We have been able to achieve some successes in this direction. This is not to appreciate the fact that our men have not demonstrated lack of proper understanding by way of knowing that vehicles are mechanical and can break down at any given time.
