The suspended enforcement of the electronic central motor registry registration e-CMR, must have come to vehicle owners across the country as a huge relief.
This should be expected given intense public outcry against the policy billed to take effect from July 29, 2024. Public grouse with the initiative hinged on its prospects of compounding the burden of vehicle owners already overstretched by a multiplicity of taxes and levies in the face of unfavourable economic environment.
The measure was also suspected as a creation by the police to harass, inconvenience and extort vehicle owners. The seeming haste in its enforcement and lack of clarity as to the purpose it is meant to serve, further fuelled public cynicism.
But the chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law, John Aikpokpo-Martins had a different angle to these reservations. He slammed the initiative for what he called its blatant disregard for the rule of law.
Aikpokpo-Martins questioned the legal basis for the police to issue CMR, arguing that no law granted them the powers to collect fees and issue such a certificate. He threatened legal action.
The Nigerian Bar Association NBA has since disowned his statement citing the suspension of the arm of the bar association he hitherto led. But the NBA equally picked holes with police issuance of the e-CMR with an appeal for its reconsideration.
Apparently responding to these reservations, the Inspector General of Police IGP, Kayode Egbetokun suspended the enforcement of the e-CMR. The police said the suspension would enable them sensitise the public on the initiative. They explained the initiative is among others, designed to ensure the safety and security of all types of vehicles including motorcycles, by collating data imputed into the system by vehicle owners and acting on such to flag vehicles if reported stolen.
“ Similarly, the e-CMR will prevent multiple registration of vehicles and serve as a data base to collect biometric and other data of vehicle owners and individuals, adding value to the national database and incident report portal generated from other Ministries, Departments and agencies towards national security” the IGP further explained.
Ostensibly, the e-CMR registration is to aid the police protect lives and property. Ordinarily, the objectives to be served by the e-CMR should have been well received by the public. Any genuine measure to enhance the protection of lives and property is expected to attract the support and endorsement of the general public. The escalating insecurity across the country is one key reason that support ought to be taken for granted.
Unfortunately, e-CMR has not been so received. Public opposition to the new initiative is not as much with the objective it is meant to serve as with the fear that it will provide the police a new avenue to extort vehicle owners. The conduct of some police officers at checkpoints and the extortion motorists regularly face in their hands, reinforce this mistrust.
So, the fear that the initiative stands to be exploited for the selfish gains of some unscrupulous police officers is not unfounded. Apart from having to cough out N5, 375 to obtain the certificate, e-CMR will add to the volume of documents demanded by the police at checkpoints that have been turned to toll points.
Even now, police operatives demand for so many documents from motorists that it is difficult to say for certain, the number of vehicle documents a driver is expected to carry while on transit. You will be amazed at the number of documents you are asked to provide at checkpoints especially along the highways. e-CMR will add to this load.
Many years back, it was difficult for motorists, especially private car owners to drive through the Lagos-Benin highway without being contravened/extorted for not having CMR. Once they check your papers and found everything correct, the next thing is to demand for your CMR.
Then, many vehicle owners had no idea of what CMR was all about. Neither was it listed among the particulars they were required to carry while on transit. Those who found that document convenient to extort motorists knew it was not compulsory. Yet, they harassed vehicle owners to produce it. Opposition to e-CMR may have been evoked by such past encounters.
In one of our interactive sessions while on the editorial board of a national daily, we had raised this issue with the then Lagos state commissioner of police. When asked the documents motorists were required to carry on them, CMR was not among the papers he listed. Yet, the police along the Lagos-Benin section of the expressway, always found that document a convenient tool for extortion.
I had personal encounters with the police along that highway for non possession of CMR. Their conduct and the inconvenience I faced, compelled me to commission a reporter to get one for me for a fee.
The next time I plied that section of the road, I was waiting to surprise them with that document. But to my disappointment, I was not flagged down in the usual way. Neither did anybody ask me of it in many of the occasions I passed through that highway. It remains unclear to me till today why nobody harassed me again for CMR after the pains I took to secure it.
The Fact that police is about to make CMR mandatory has exposed the illegality of the actions of those who had demanded for it 20 years ago. Why it was only along that section of the highway the police found it convenient to ask for CMR remains also curious.
It is therefore not just enough for the Police Public Relations Officer PPRO, Olumuyiwa Adejobi to wave aside public criticism of CMR on the ground that it is not new. It is new because its possession would compel vehicle owners to part with N5,375. It is also new in the sense that it has not been part of the documents motorists were mandatorily required to carry on transit.
The PPRO was not equally correct when he asserted with an air of finality that no agency can take on the police on the CMR. On the contrary, the initiative can be challenged in court as already threatened by Aikpokpo-Martins . I have heard lawyers say that law is silent as long as it has not been provoked. The propriety of the police collecting rates for the issuance of CMR has been called to question. It may not lie solely within the purview of that institution to resolve the challenge.
The case of the Federal Road Safety Commission FRSC should serve as a veritable lesson. A couple of years back, the FRSC had the notion of unfettered powers to operate on state and local roads until it was challenged in court.
The Court of Appeal sitting in Asaba, Delta state, had then affirmed the judgment of the Federal High Court in Warri which held that the FRSC can only operate on federal roads. The federal High Court had on January, 25, 2019 ruled in favour of Darlington Ehikim all the reliefs he sought including a declaration that the FRSC had no right to operate or carry out any activity on state and local roads. The matter is on appeal.
Perhaps, the case brought by Kunle Edun, a lawyer against the Delta state government, its Attorney General and the Ughelli North local government area for demanding a valid Road Worthiness Certificate for his private vehicle should be instructive enough. Edun had in the suit argued there was no provision in the law of the state for such a certificate as it is only required for commercial transport and haulage vehicles.
The high court granted the relief he sought. The Appeal Court, Asaba division upheld the ruling of the high court when it held that they are not authorised to demand fee or issue certificates of Road Worthiness to private vehicles according to the road traffic law of the state. The state government appealed the ruling.
The right of the police to collect fees for issuance of the e-CMR can be challenged . So also the amount to be collected. It is a different ball game if the courts resolve the matter in favour of that agency.
Must the police charge money for documentation that is billed to be done online? If Yes, what amount and is the certificate renewable? Is it possible for the police to use data available in the vehicle registration offices, information in the National Identification Number portal and incident report portal from other government agencies to seamlessly achieve the same objective?.
