"MY driving licence expired on Wednesday May 25, 2011 and I decided to renew it immediately. This promptness is borne out of my aversion to giving bribes or begging law enforcement agents for falling short of the law. I therefore went to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) office at Olowu/Sura on Lagos Island to do the needful. Again, I got a first-hand experience of how terrible our public institutions have become.
I got to the FRSC office at 3.28pm and immediately I stepped into the compound, to my left and under a tree, I saw two officers in uniforms. They called out to me and asked what I wanted. I explained my purpose to them: that I wanted to renew my expired driving licence. They directed me to another officer who was in mufti. We exchange pleasantries and I told him again that I wanted to renew my licence. He asked for the expired licence and upon receiving and scrutinizing it, told me that it is a fake licence. He asserted that it must have been produced by licence touts after trying to show me some features which an ‘original licence’ should have.
After the initial lecture, he first complained that I have come too late in the day and then gave me three options through which I can get a driving licence. Like an insurance agent, enumerated the details of each option and advised me to consider the options in ascending order i.e. from 1-3. Each of the options is described below.
* Option 1: I may get another ‘fake’ driving licence for five thousand naira (N5,000) only in three (3) days.
* Option 2: I may get an original licence in 2-3 weeks in the ‘express mode’. The express mode costs N8, 000. There will be no need for direct data capture as my passport photograph will suffice and there is no cover note that shows any law enforcement agent that my papers are being processed by FRSC.
* Option 3: I will have to pay N8, 000 as above, appear in person for the capture of my biometrics, bring driving school certificate and wait 5-6 months to get the licence. I will however get a cover note. This is the full package.
I obstinately told him that I wanted option 3 despite his seeming ‘concern’ for the inconveniences I will experience through that course of action but did not give him an advance as he requested because there are some things I couldn’t just reconcile. The following questions are begging answers.
1. What time do civil servants close? Is 3.30pm too late to conduct government business?
2. Why will government officers in uniform sell 3 variants of the same ‘product’ while stating that a variant is fake? I got the expired licence from the same office.
3. Will I still not get the fake licence even if I go on with option 3?
4. Why should I go inside a government office and be afraid that I will be issued fake documents?
5. When and who will clean the rot in the FRSC (and the civil service generally)?
6. What is the essence of having agencies like SERVICOM, Consumer Protection Council, etc when brazen recklessness is the order of the day in government ministries, departments and agencies under their purview?
7. Is there still any professional, dedicated and patriotic public servant in this country as you can scarcely do anything without having to pay bribes in government offices?
8. Must Anti-Corruption agencies wait for a petition before they can act? Banks do not wait for customers to complain as the only basis to keep their sticky fingered staff on leash. Their internal control mechanism administers integrity tests every now and then. The Police used to do the same to control erring checking point officers. When will this resume and on a larger scale?
9. Why must the cost (process) of doing the right thing correctly be so high, thereby creating an incentive to cheat on the system?
10. For how long will the government lose revenue to these saboteurs?
The questions can go on and on. However, this is a clarion call to those in charge of our nation. We have had enough of this menace. The time to clean up our institutions and put our house in order is now. The time to end deaths on our highway caused by incompetent drivers who bought driving licence from officers of FRSC is now. The time to stop the discouragement of foreign investment and the stifling domestic businesses through unethical practices of government officials is now. The time to rise up as a nation and as a people in diligence, dignity and patriotism is now. Else…"
| Posted: at | |
........yu already no that 
...heheh...if yu wanna smell what kebella is cooking........bring it up!!
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