Driving on any major road, street or highways in the twin cities of Effurun/Warri and other towns in Delta State requires a lot of patience and self-control. No, it is not because of the condition of the roads or the menace of reckless taxi or bus drivers and their tricycle (keke) counterparts, who drive at breakneck speed or pilot unworthy vehicles without the basic safety features like turn indicators, horns or windshield wipers. Most of the buses and taxis on the road don’t have headlight or tail lights, side or inner mirrors; the safety conscious ones among them simply use bits of their wives’ broken make-up glasses. The ‘mirror’ is placed on the dash board and the driver would conjure them when they need to look out before veering from one lane to the other.
But these drivers are no longer the biggest threat to road users because this devil the road users know is way better than the crazy security agents they don’t know. Security men attached to ‘big men’ and their wives are the biggest danger now for motorist and even pedestrians.
Taking your car for a drive on the roads, either for pleasure or when going about your normal business, calls for prayers and divine watch to save you from security and paramilitary operators attached to government officials, top operators of the oil and gas industry, their counterparts in the illegal (bunkering) deals and local thugs. The activities of these ‘security’ agents have turned every Toyota hilux van or any van favoured by these classes of moneybags into vehicles above the law so much so that the sight of one of these pick-ups releases adrenalin and send the hearts of other users of the road palpitating.
The menaces of these vans, which drive behind and in front of exotic cars and buses at breakneck speed even along narrow streets, have forced cost at least one life and uncountable destructions to other road users or even people lounging in front of their houses.
A friend once joked that most big men in Delta state move around with their own police station and army barracks; the bigger the men the bigger their escorts and troops. In a clear demonstration of the lawlessness that has pervaded the country, this class of people is above the law and they drive even against traffic at the same speed. The irony is that FRSC official, police and other security agents at on the roads wave them, even kowtow with the hope of getting ‘something for the boys’, thereby legalizing the illegality.
“They are kill-and-go people”, lamented one of their victims. “Even when they drive against traffic, they bring out horsewhip and flog anybody who stands in their way, not minding that the person has the right of way.”
It is not only with the common driver on the road that the big men clash, sometimes they clash among themselves. “It could be that one team has regular policemen on its convoy and the other has mobile policemen. In that case the mopol usually win except when they are outnumbered.”
Similarly, the ultra-rich among them rich use soldiers. This class prefers to convey their security ’aides’ in heavy duty pickup trucks like the petrol-guzzling Ford F150, Toyota Tundra or Nissan Titan, just to prove that ‘my convoy is longer than yours, so my money is more than yours.’
The police’s involvement in this madness querries our belief in the rule of law. With the police and some other security agencies deeply involved in the commotion that driving in Warri has become, it remains to be seen who will save the society. It would have been a different ball game if the culprits are only the ordinary people. My last word here is that this madness must stop. The police and other security operatives must be made to respect the rule of law by their top hierarchy. Enough is just enough!
