Sophia Michaels
Reports of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, seeking the introduction of Sharia Law to complement existing extant regulations on enforcing traffic rules and prosecuting offenders have been dismissed by the agency.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Corps Spokesperson, Bisi Kazeem, and made available to Punch on Saturday.
It was reported that the sector commander, FRSC, in Bauchi State, Yusuf Abdullahi, had said there was a need to create a Shari’a law to prosecute traffic offenders to curtail road crashes in the country.
Reacting, Kazeem said Abdullahi’s statement does not in any way, reflect the position of FRSC.
According to the statement, the Corps Marshal, Dauda Biu, has recalled with immediate effect, the Sector Commander to the National Headquarters Abuja, for necessary administrative action for breaching the FRSC regulations and the Standard Operating Procedures.
The statement read in part “Without any reservation, it is key to inform the general public that the Federal Road Safety Corps is a Government Agency with statutory responsibilities for road safety administration in Nigeria and sensitive to the country’s multi-religious as well as heterogeneous ethnic composition.
“The Corps was founded through Decree No. 45, as amended by Decree 35 of 1992 referred to in the statute books as the FRSC Act cap 141 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria. The Act was passed by the National Assembly as Federal Road Safety Corps (establishment) Act 2007.
“By this very fact, it is important to posit that the Corps is neither a religious nor sectional organisation, but a Federal Government Agency established with a mandate that is guided by the provisions of an establishment Act; and not a Sharia, Mosaic, customary, canon or any other law whatsoever that contradicts the provisions of its establishment Act, or the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Our lead agency role is shielded in our strict compliance with established regulations duly passed by the National Assembly. As such, the public is humbly called to disregard the entire content of the opinion as published because it is outrightly baseless, unfounded and does not apply to our operations and service to the Nigerian people.”
