By Felix Oboagwina
General Ibrahim Babangida was infamously notorious for formulating and forcing several unpopular decrees down the throat of Nigerians in his eight-year rule. To the “Evil Genius,” who crowned his era of infamy with the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections, belongs the copyright of the equally infamous “Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Decree No. 6 of 1991.”
Ironically, in a civilian regime run by a Bola Ahmed Tinubu who fought Babangida to a standstill, IBB’s draconian law has been dug up by Inspector-General of Police Kayode Egbetokun to pepper Nigerians. Nigerians still relive the military-era nightmare of obtaining and presenting a certificate or permit to drive with “tinted glasses.” This time around, IGP Egbetokun is levying motorists N14,000 per vehicle to obtain the permit.
The plan has caused much uproar nationwide. Some have warned that with this impending policy, Egbetokun has overstepped his statutory mandate; moreover, he is reversing the country back to its dark, draconian history under the military.
To justify their imposition, police authorities hide behind the one finger of Section 3 of the Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Act. This Act came to life under IBB as the “Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Decree No. 6 of 1991.” This is a Military Decree! Babangida formulated the law at a time he held Nigeria by the jugular in that infamous season of anomie. Not every law is a good law, and authorities must have a reason for pushing this martial-inclined law under the carpet in the last 34 years! Now under President Tinubu, Egbetokun has resurrected Godzilla, the king of monsters!
Currently, amounts that vehicle owners pay on particulars have hit an all-time high. For example, Proof of Ownership certificates, erstwhile a one-off documentation, has become yearly renewable. How do you demand that ownership certificates must be renewed every year even when ownership remains unchanged? Recently, third-party insurance suddenly ballooned by 200 percent from N5,000 to N15,000? Driving licence fees, vehicle licence fees have all grown wings in the last two years. Don’t even mention the hackney permit where states and local governments bay for blood when freight vans and lorries pass through their territories. Imagine one truck, lorry or trailer needing one or more document from each of the 36 states and 774 local governments!
Coming from the Police Force of a country that does not manufacture a single vehicle, and rather imports all motor vehicles (and glasses), the enforcement of this law will be nothing but preposterous and overreaching. Nigeria that manufactures neither glasses nor vehicles will be funnelling scarce foreign exchange to nations that manufacture and sell plain cars and glasses to us.
Many have wondered if this will not distract the police of a country reeling from widespread insurgency and insecurity for which the Armed Forces have found no solution. Police actually say the measure will help them fight insecurity.
Fight insecurity indeed! Cars have boots. Boots hide things from visible eyes. Clearly, we don’t pay for car-boot permits? Are we not simply told to open the booths for the contents to be inspected? Shouldn’t the same obtain for tinted glasses? If in doubt about occupants or contents of a vehicle, can police not simply demand that, as in the case of the boot, the driver or passenger should wind down the door glass on approaching checking points?
Moreover, as currently framed, violation of the law fetches a fine of N2,000. Yet police want drivers to obtain the licence for N14,000! Can you see discordance and disconnect? Procuring the permit for such a huge sum means that the scheme will make the Force revenue-generating. No country’s police operate purely for revenue-generation. The police have no business in business. Nor can the Force formulate programmes to generate revenue for itself or the government. Its budget comes as a first-line charge, like those of the Army and other paramilitary agencies. Police work is essential service. The government takes care of ALL police’s capital and recurrent expenditures.
Moreover, where is the justice in this arrangement? Conferring the Force with this draconian power makes the police complainant, prosecutor and judge rolled into one. An executive arm of government suddenly commandeers the powers of the judiciary as well as the executive. Wow! That puts colossal power in the hand of one institution. The writers of our constitution deliberately guarded against such a monstrosity through couching the Grund nom in the Doctrine of Separation of Powers.
What actually is tinted glass?
By definition, tinted glass in a car refers to “window glass that is darkened either at the factory by adding metal oxides to the glass during production, or by applying a thin film to the surface of existing glass after the car is built. This treatment provides benefits like increased privacy, UV protection, and heat reduction….”
Vehicles made in Europe, America, Asia and anywhere else all avoid plain glasses. Colouring of vehicle glasses has become the universal standard to counter the harmful effect of ultraviolet (UV) rays. Yet Nigerian police want citizens to go plain glasses.
Will enforcement distinguish between colour, shaded and tinted glasses? Do colour windows equal tinted glasses? IGP Egbetokun couldn’t care less. So far, police publicity campaign behind the implementation of this law has ignored the tone, language and spirit of the Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Act. You wonder if the NPF has a Legal Department! Police PROs interpret it to say you must get a permit “if you’re driving a car with tinted, shaded, coloured, or darkened glass.”
But that has no backing in this quoted law. The actual law says no such thing. Read the exact wording:
The Federal Military Government hereby decrees as follows:
1. (1) Except with the permission of the appropriate authority designated for the purposes of this Decree and for such good cause as may be determined from time to time by the appropriate authority, no person shall cause any glass fitted on a motor vehicle to be-
(a) tinted; or
(b) shaded; or
(c) coloured lightly; or thickly
(d) darkened; or
(e) reated in any other way,
so that the persons or objects in the motor vehicle are rendered obscure or invisible.
Clearly, it says, “no person shall cause any glass fitted on a motor vehicle to be tinted” etc. The word CAUSE remains the operative denominator. Have you CAUSED your vehicle glasses to be tinted? Obviously, what the law frowns at is the vehicle owner going the EXTRA MILE, or making EXTRA EFFORT, to shade, colour, darken or tint the glass of his vehicle. If the shade or colouring is FOLLOW-COME, you have no business getting a permit. But who will tell this to the Nigerian policeman hunting for off-plain glasses whenever the regulation takes effect?
The official explanation of that law couches it as: “An Act to prohibit the tinting or treating in any other way any glass fitted in a motor vehicle so as to render persons in the vehicle obscure or invisible.” Note the word PROHIBIT. This clearly exempts intrinsically or originally FOLLOW-COME shaded and colour glasses. The law aims to prevent or to licence the tinting of vehicles by owners who “deliberately” choose to. It connotes that such action of tinting was voluntary, by choice and a superfluous action for luxurious purposes.
So why does IGP Egbetokun want to make it a blanket law? Why will he be misapplying a law reserved not for general motorists but the few owners who choose to paste tint-stickers on their glasses?
•Oboagwina is an author, journalist and publisher, reachable via: foboagwina@gmail.com
