FG orders FRSC to impound vehicles without proper Customs papers

The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has been empowered by the Federal Government to henceforth impound any vehicle imported into Nigeria without genuine Customs clearance.
President Goodluck Jonathan handed this directive on Wednesday when the Corps-Marshal of the FRSC, Mr. Osita Chidoka, presented to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) an update on Nigeria’s Status on the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020).
According to the President, it is no longer enough for the FRSC to just ask people without the genuine papers to go and get one but must investigate how the vehicle got into the country without the genuine papers.

After his presentation, Chidoka, told State House Correspondents that the presidential directive would speed up the accumulation of reliable database on cars plying the roads and eliminate fraudulent customs papers often bandied about by motorists seeking to register their vehicles in the country.

“People come to us and present their custom duty paper and we register. But now we are no longer taking that paper, we are no linked with the custom ‎clearance platform. So the data of all the cars that are validly entered into the country through the customs system is already domiciled in our system. So when we enter your Chasis number and that car does not come up into the system then we have to get you to get a genuine customs papers because what they carry our fake papers.

“We have been able to do that for the insurance industry. If you notice now if you register your car with the new number plate they will tell you to bring your e-policy because all the insurance companies are required to update their policy to a database while we verify it. So any car that carries the new number plate, that goes through registration has valid insurance. That is what we want to do with the customs license. Initially our plans was when we see your papers and there not correct we ask you to go back to customs but with the feedback from Mr. President today, that is not enough. We need to hold that car, investigate how it entered into the country without going through the normal process. So we will modify the process to include the customs in that process,” he stated.

Chidoka said the corps was intent on making Nigerian roads among the 20 safest in the world by 2020 even as he explained that the UN Decade of Action was declared following global statistics that road accidents were killing about 1.3 million persons every year, especially in developing countries.