The Zonal Commanding Officer of the Federal Road Safety Corps in charge of Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa states, ACM Kayode Olagunju, mni, HAS arrested 305 motorists for offering bribe to men and officers of the Corps.

A statement by the spokesperson of the zone, RC Olusegun Owoeye made available to ASHENEWS on Tuesday, warned motorists to stop offering bribes to marshals, while reminding road users that both bribe givers and takers were committing criminal offences as in Sections 8, 9 an 10 of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) Act, 2000 and also Section 10 (5) (i) of the Federal Road Safety Commission (Establishment) Act, 2007.

“The ICPC Act in Section 23, provides for 3 years imprisonment or more upon conviction. Those who Attempt to Corrupt Staff of the Corps face the risk of imprisonment for not more than 3 months as prescribed in Section 10 (11) of the FRSC Act. Those who are arrested for committing traffic offences are advised in their own interests not to offer bribes to FRSC men in the course of their duties,” Olagunju stated.

He gave the advice and number of those aressted while reviewing the operational activities of the command with the Principal Officers of the Zonal Headquarters in Jos, Plateau State.

According to the the report on arrests, of the 305 motorists apprehended in the zone in the last five months for offering bribes to the marshals on patrol, 89 were in Plateau state, 104 in Benue and 112 in Nasarawa state.

“The amount offered ranged between N250,000. Curiously, some even offered more money than the stipulated fines of the offence committed as they opted to attempt compromising the process of fines payment or prosecution rather than having their times “wasted” or face the risks of imprisonment,” he disclosed.

He observed that the fines payment process, “which includes attending Re-Orientation Classes for Offenders, is so designed to discourage committing traffic offences as some of the fines are so low and could be ineffective to serve as deterrence.

“Some of the arrested bribe givers are being prosecuted while others have paid the ten thousand naira fines each and also forfeited to the government the offered bribes.

Olagunju promised to sustain his monitoring and surveillance activities, while assuring that the command had “put in place Surveillance Mechanism, which has monitors comprising of both FRSC staff and non staff that occasionally storm the road unannounced to put eyes on the activities of the patrol teams without the team knowing, to identify operatives violating the patrol guidelines.

“Some of the patrol team members, vehicles and surroundings are searched to ensure nobody has more than the previously declared maximum permittable N1,000 on them.

“In line with Regulation 23 (1c, e) and (2a-c) of the FRSC Regulations on Discipline, 2018 as amended, some staff of the Corps engaging in patrol misconduct were also arrested. The penalty for the violation is termination of appointment of the defaulting staff.

“In the last six months, 21 patrol officers and men of the Zone were arrested for extortion/ Patrol misconduct and subjected to the FRSC Disciplinary Proccess accordingly. The Command is poised to enhance Surveillance activities to improve on the integrity of the Patrol Operations,” he said.

The Commander admonished all the Officers and Men of the Corps to key into the various welfare programmes of the Corps Marshal Boboye Oyeyemi-led management of the FRSC, which are meant to discourage corrupt practices.

He reminded all Regular and Special Marshals that the Corps has zero tolerance for bribery and corruption. “Those staff who have been living above board have also been commended in line with the Management Policy of Consultation, Rewards and Punishment.”

Dr Kayode Olagunju also admonished members of the public to always turn down requests for bribes from FRSC men while those who have information on bribery should also report through the FRSC toll free emergency telephone number 122 or the FRSC/Akin Fadeyi Foundation Report Corruption App, FLAG’IT, which can be downloaded from the Google Store.

Every Patrol car has bold body code numbers while Officers and Men have their Name tags for easy identitification for reporting.